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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?

#241

Post by sharadov »

sanguy wrote: post #234

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…

Most people here are saying therapists, but the crux of the problem is the "tech" job. The sooner you can get out the better. Everything else is a band aid.

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

#242

Post by dave84 »

zorked wrote: post #78
bJGVygG7MQVF8c wrote: post #16

A subscription to O'Reilly's digital library https://learning.oreilly.com

This is the thing that used to be called Safari, right? This is great, but a tad expensive at $50/month. I wish O'Reilly would just charge a bit less for that.

I subscribed for a few months, cancelled and later in the year got an offer to resubscribe for around $200 per annum and they've locked that in for me ever since. Worth a try.

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

#243

Post by mannymanman »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #221

Textbooks in general (like academic textbooks, not orielly style books). Work through a textbook or three each year, and once you’re a decade into your career it’s like you have another degree under your belt. Find something you want to dive deep on and instead of reading a dozen blogs, buy the textbook and do some of the exercises as you go. It keeps you spending time in foundational stuff rather than specific frame…

Examples of textbooks you have used?

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

#244

Post by hooloovoo_zoo »

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.

Interesting, I found the author so off-putting I didn't make it more than 50 pages. I'll have to try again based on all these +1s.

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

#245

Post by mac01021 »

ilyas121 wrote: post #218
locochef wrote: post #204

The single best thing I did for professional development was see a therapist. In tech, our jobs are knowledge-based. You can't hammer a nail into a board while you're sitting on the couch with your child, but you can certainly think about software architecture. I've found that my job bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa, and I believe it is far more common than most people realize. Stress piles up and it affe…

This for me as well! I used to think that if I was inward-looking enough I could handle all of this myself. But outsourcing this kind of work to a professional has saved me so much time and trial&error with how to take care of my mental health.

Is it possible for you, without sharing personal details that you would rather not share, to give a more concrete and detailed account of the value that your therapist has provided to you?

I've also always regarded myself as introspective enough not to be able to benefit from therapy. And, while I'm open minded to the idea that I am wrong about that, I just have trouble imagining or envisioning what I might be missing.

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

#246

Post by parliament32 »

JackFr wrote: post #170
somurzakov wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

never buy from dealership at retail prices period. go to a smaller dealer and ask them to buy a car from wholesale auction for you and you cover their costs. that way their margin js transparent and is negotiated upfront. You will be lucky to get 5-10% discount from retail prices, but wholesale prices at Manheim can be 15-30% less than retail, even more if you are willing to buy less than perfect condition car

There was a fascinating EconTalk episode about the economics of a car dealers. https://www.econtalk.org/cole-on-the-market-for-new-cars/ One interesting point was letting the buyer successfully negotiate to an absolute rock bottom price, but then making back the margin on financing.

I keep hearing "they make money on financing" but I don't see how that's possible. I've bought three new cars financed, and every time the finance person puts my info in and gets finance "offers" from 4-5 big banks plus their in-house financing, and just lets me pick the one with the best rate -- usually most of the finance offers are under 5%, with the best one being under 1%. One time I went to one of the offering banks directly and got a worse rate than they offered me through the dealer! Maybe they're making commission on the sale but it can't be much.

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

#248

Post by melenaboija »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #236
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.

Same here, AMD Ryzen 9 3900X with 64gb.

I just realized I don't need that when I am seating in front of tv or while traveling, and as long as I can connect two external monitors to my laptop is enough.

Something "similar" to this in MacBook world is 4k, and you end up with a portable device with worst battery performance and always suffering that you are about to loose your life.

VS Code was definitely something that helped to decide for this configuration.

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

#249

Post by jeeshan »

locochef wrote: post #204

The single best thing I did for professional development was see a therapist. In tech, our jobs are knowledge-based. You can't hammer a nail into a board while you're sitting on the couch with your child, but you can certainly think about software architecture. I've found that my job bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa, and I believe it is far more common than most people realize. Stress piles up and it affe…

Fully agree. There are therapists who also do coaching.
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