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Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#151

Post by whimsicalism »

orzig wrote: post #137
gtf21 wrote: post #67

As a founder / CTO the best money I have spent is on a really good coach. My coach (my cofounder's too, and now some of our leadership team) doesn't have particular expertise in founding or leading companies, but works with many founders, and she's not technical, but the things I think I have found hardest to learn are mostly around people management and leadership, which I think are underrated skills that require se…

I've also struggled with finding the right coach. It's a tricky evaluation problem: The first meeting shouldn't feel perfectly comfortable, the whole point is that they're going to bring in viewpoints that stress you out. But incorrect viewpoints also stress me out. I'd love to demand scientific evidence behind all of their assertions, but have (kicking and screaming) come to realize that many important things in lif…

> I'd love to demand scientific evidence behind all of their assertions, but have (kicking and screaming) come to realize that many important things in life simply don't/can't have studies at my preferred level of rigor.

Hm. I still haven't accepted this, perhaps it's why I think a lot of management "techniques" are bullshit or bullshit combined with obvious truisms.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#152

Post by michjedi »

beagle3 wrote: post #60
smt88 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get them for free at the library. No need to spend professional development money on them.

Early in your career, yes. As you dig deeper they become available only in university libraries and then not even there. Most material is available for free on the internet, but like most open source material, you have to compile it yourself and that takes time. Good books save you the time by including important dependencies, normalizing notation, etc.

Exactly this - most of the libraries in my area have little if no technical books. I know exactly why too - I've frequently come across libraries in the UK that are selling off their technical books, because they're not receiving much attention. I've had multiple occasions where I've managed to buy dozens of books for the value of just one of them.

It's not easy to even ask for a book. I've asked librarians for books before, and I even have a friend currently working in a fairly large library request a book for me (with evidence from me of interest in it), and the request was refused.

The real books worth reading are those that make you a greater expert than the majority of the population. Libraries don't benefit much from storing books that will only be read by one or two people.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#154

Post by jrvarela56 »

Onsite Workshops in TN, USA.

This is not your typical trainning or practical skills-focused workshop. 6 days of group therapy without access to phone/computer. ~5-6k for the course + room and board. Price has been rising but it's worth every penny.

You explore personal issues through guided group dynamics. You share and listen to others. By the end of the course, you know more about your group partners' lives than anyone you've known in 'real life'.

I learned so much about myself, how to deal with my feelings and the impact my experiences/impressions have on my performance as a professional, family member and partner.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#155

Post by i_love_music »

athenot wrote: post #130
roland35 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was purchasing a car this helped a lot too! Salesmen are much more experienced than me since they negotiate every day, but even accounting for that it is easy to see what they are doing with other customers and easy to see through the attempts they make on myself. The most common one of course is the "time limited" deal... As if I just happened to show up on the only day there is a sale...

The fun part is you can turn that technique against them and it works like a charm. I've repeated this a few times now: dedicate a day to car buying and call 10 of them up telling them I'm buying a car TODAY, with these precise specs. No upsells entertained. And I let them in on the fact that I'm calling all the others and expect to make a decision by a set time. Always remain super polite but stay firm. In a way I s…

Fascinating. Can you follow up with more info on how the day progresses? You play one dealer against another or use some other technique?

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#156

Post by dpritchett »

miguendes wrote: post #80
gtf21 wrote: post #67

As a founder / CTO the best money I have spent is on a really good coach. My coach (my cofounder's too, and now some of our leadership team) doesn't have particular expertise in founding or leading companies, but works with many founders, and she's not technical, but the things I think I have found hardest to learn are mostly around people management and leadership, which I think are underrated skills that require se…

I'm considering hiring a coach to improve my soft skills. The problem is finding the right person. Do you have any tips on how to find such person? Edit: software -> soft I mean stuff like better communication, goal setting, learning strategies, negotiation skills...

What are you hoping to learn? Might be hard to get it all from a single coach.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#157

Post by orzig »

nolok wrote: post #129
orzig wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be thrilled to spend $1,000 on any of these if I knew for sure they'd work, but the Expected Value of a tool (or any other investment) falls very fast when I consider how little hard evidence I have to go on /for my particular context/. For books, the dollar cost is so low that I can buy it, invest 15 minutes in evaluating it, and not feel bad walking away. At least 25% of books are worth the time and cost, which…

I absolutely understand, which is also why I waited way too long to buy them. Which one do you doubt and what are your questions ? I would be happy to provide more about my experience so you can decide if it matches your need.

Thanks a million! IDE: How do you estimate which one is going to be best /after/ you invest in the training? I have been really trying to get better at emacs, for example, but it still feels clunky a lot of the time so I only use it for org-mode. I also switched to VS Code and honestly don't see what the hype is about - but does that mean I just need more training? From who? ("If brute force isn't working, use more of it!")

Hardware: I bought a gamer laptop (for use with Ubuntu) recently because it had a GPU, but was shocked to discover that I never got used to the keyboard. Again, I thought that I would get better, but it really hasn't. Fortunately, my Kenesis keyboard /was/ something with a continuously rising learning curve (I'm not hopeless, contra the evidence above!) But now I'm doing a lot of work in Looker which tries to do extraordinary things in the browser, but brings my machine to a crawl. My Mac-using coworker says it's less of an issue for him, but I can't quite bear to drop $2k just for that one application. That said, the value-of-my-time-over-1y calculation suggests I should. But does "good computer" just mean a Mac?

Monitor: What would be a good monitor buying guide? I'm happy with mine now but don't know what any of the specs mean for the future

Chair: This is like the definition of "YMMV" but how would you go about evaluating chairs, esp in the covid era?

Standing desk: I've been procrastinating on this one because while I understand how to measure things, I foresee myself visiting a half dozen diffent sites with different ways of representing the size/specs of their desks and getting pretty overwhelmed. And that would be the hardest thing to return.

Quality noise cancelling headphones: OK I guess I have no excuse here.

Thanks again, you've already forced me to think through several mental blocks and realize they are real but entirely surmountable. Any answers (from anyone) to the questions above would also be appreciated!

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#158

Post by phonebanshee »

paulgb wrote: post #17

I've enjoyed having an O'Reilly Safari subscription for random access to books. In particular, the Pragmatic Programmer and Designing Data-Intensive Applications. I've also had good experiences with SCPD courses from Stanford, if your budget would cover those (they are at the other end of the price spectrum).

And check your local library. Here in Seattle you get to use Safari if you have a library card.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#160

Post by Icathian »

d3nj4l wrote: post #94
_wldu wrote: post #47

Spend $9,000 US dollars to get a MS in CS, Data Science or Cyber Security from Georgia Tech. It's a solid top 10 CS program. It will take a few years, but it is definitely a great investment. If you don't already have an undergrad degree and/or want a quicker program, look at some of the reputable code/security academies that partner with major state universities. They cost a bit more 15K to 20K but are shorter (typi…

You make it seem like getting into the MSCS program at Georgia Tech is just a matter of money!

While getting accepted is obviously not a given, the program's admission rate is very high. The founder, Zvi Galil, is on record speaking to the philosophy of democratizing CS education that motivated the program.

Which is a flowery way of saying that getting into OMSCS is much more about affording it than any other similar program.

Getting out with the degree, however, requires some serious commitment.

-Disclosure: I am currently a student in the program.

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