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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?

#231

Post by dave84 »

esond wrote: post #77
ThePhysicist wrote: post #58

I once did a two-day workshop on negotiation techniques, which covered not only methods but also helped me to become more comfortable dealing with the psychological stress that's induced in many negotiation situations. So far I'd say the course (which was free as I won it as a prize in a business plan competition) is directly responsible for at least 50-100.000 € of additional revenue that I made in the last years, s…

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. This relatively short book has made more of a difference to my personal livelihood than maybe any other pice of literature or advice. You really don’t realize how much negotiating you do in day to day life. Its good to be comfortable with it.

That book paid for itself ten times over by the time I had finished reading it, practicing on insurance renewals and utility bills.

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

#233

Post by cle »

boogies wrote: post #207
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #103

If your budget is a few hundred, an IntelliJ Ultimate license. For me it's a force multiplier. Built-in highlights of things that can be improved (e.g. linting) is a bonus. In the end, things like VS Code are just text editors. I mean, you can't get a warning that the `[]` syntax isn't available in your old codebase's flavor of PHP (5.2) in VS Code. I think. Alternatively: Take time off. If you have enough money to l…

> I mean, you can't get a warning that the `[]` syntax isn't available in your old codebase's flavor of PHP (5.2) in VS Code. I think. You can get warnings when syntax isn’t available in your script’s flavor of shell in [neo]vi[m], emacs, or GNU ed with shellcheck, I’d be mildly surprised if there wasn’t a similar editor-agnostic linter for PHP.

I just tried this in VSCode using Intelephense and it detected the invalid syntax just fine ("PHP 5.4+ syntax found."). I've never done PHP development, but it only took a few clicks to set it up (install extension and go into preferences and change the language version).

Since VSCode is just using LSP under the hood, that means it would also work fine in Emacs, [neo]vi[m], Sublime, Atom, etc.

In the long run, I don't see how IntelliJ will be able to compete with LSP, as it gets polished up.

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

#234

Post by sanguy »

The therapist is a good one already suggested.

Also instead of other PD I would suggest to save (invest) as much as possible as early as possible. A career in tech is very seldom healthy as a forever job so having an escape path is important.

I used this technique to get enough invested by 45 that I could comfortably live on the dividends/capital gains/passive income it generates without ever touching the investment principle. This is a very nice feeling as it allowed me to "escape the grinder."

Telling Eric Schmidt (while at Google) to "go fuck yourself" and walk out the door to never return was the most empowering thing I have ever done.

My career has been much more rewarding since.

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

#235

Post by ethbr0 »

esond wrote: post #77
ThePhysicist wrote: post #58

I once did a two-day workshop on negotiation techniques, which covered not only methods but also helped me to become more comfortable dealing with the psychological stress that's induced in many negotiation situations. So far I'd say the course (which was free as I won it as a prize in a business plan competition) is directly responsible for at least 50-100.000 € of additional revenue that I made in the last years, s…

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. This relatively short book has made more of a difference to my personal livelihood than maybe any other pice of literature or advice. You really don’t realize how much negotiating you do in day to day life. Its good to be comfortable with it.

+1

One key component that Voss spends a lot of time on -- if your counterparty comes out a negotiation feeling like they lost, everyone loses.

The outcome of a successful negotiation is that a fair deal is struck, and everyone feels good (or at least not bad) about it.

There are very few situations in the real world that are true one-offs, where you'll never have to interact with that counterparty again. Consequently, scorched-Earth is a poor long-term approach.

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

#236

Post by vb6sp6 »

melenaboija wrote: post #111

- 15k with an MSc in Data Science after 10 years of professional experience. Key aspects that made this useful for me: I commited to it 100% and went for a 4 gpa as that was the only way to take it seriously, I could do it because of my personal situation and tine availability. I learned A LOT, among other things that I am not that stupid as I thought while taking CS, it was just a matter of interest to me. This gave…

> expensive workstation and cheap laptops as a front end

This has worked really well for me too. Desktop is xeon with 64gb ram and I can take advantage of that power from anywhere.

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

#237

Post by rdtwo »

gtf21 wrote: post #205
rdtwo wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best way to learn is through doing different challenges for yourself. A good psychologist can help you setup a plan and program without any out of pocket expenses besides co pay. Problem is finding one that uses evidence based therapy and isn’t a quack. Look for someone with a degree from a good university that specializes in anxiety

I don't know if I really agree -- I have found having a coach extremely valuable (and mine is totally unqualified in terms of psychology degrees, but has heaps of experience of coaching founders). Having someone to help you think through problems who can do so objectively, and doesn't get fascinated with the detail because she's removed from the problems to a degree, is great.

A psychologist can basically be a coach for things like social anxiety. You might be able to get a better coach but you can also get a highly qualified one subsidized by healthcare.

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

#238

Post by simmons »

This may not be a useful answer for you depending on your situation, but the best money I've spent on professional development has been funding sabbaticals between gigs where I engage in deep study on topics that are harder to learn in small doses.

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

#240

Post by whimsicalism »

wenc wrote: post #215
orzig wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I've had to unlearn this, and part of my awakening was watching the stagnation of rationalists (myself included) who think a lot and argue about things but rarely take action. So much of rationalism…

I think there's a medium ground. Rationalism and empiricism in the historical sense are interesting philosophies, good to study.

The "neo-rationalism" that you tend to find online (especially in HN & LW adjacent communities) falls much more into the criticisms you define, but I hardly really consider those communities actually "rational" at all.

Heuristics are important, but what I find management often does is lie to themselves about what is an intuitive heursitic, (perhaps justified by a story of how it worked in another company) and what is something that is generally justified by empirics. Sometimes you need to make ad-hoc, intuitive decisions due to resource constraints, but you should be aware of when those times are and shouldn't act as if they are equivalent.

I've seen this happen in some companies and it is not pretty: when you don't distinguish between the story and fact, then everyone just starts telling stories and it becomes very difficult to ascertain what is happening.

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