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Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

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Re: Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

#61

Post by eatonphil »

manifoldgeo wrote: post #57
eatonphil wrote: post #11

Not for OP but for others (since it's above the budget), take a David Beazley course. $1500 and write your own implementation of Raft. Learning more about distributed systems is really one of the best investments you could make as a backend engineer. It's the tech that powers distributed systems like Kubernetes (via Etcd), Consul, Vault, Elasticsearch, Redpanda, Cockroach, Yugabyte, etc. And you'll have to figure out…

I took his Build a Compiler in Python course, and I honestly found it to be lackluster. He had just changed the format, though, and our class was his first of a new wave where he supplied us with no example code, instead making us write it all out by hand. By the end of the five-day course, virtually no one had a working toy compiler of any kind. Maybe a parser and AST representation, but not the whole shebang. His s…

I have heard good things about his courses, but it's good to hear your perspective too.

https://vikramoberoi.com/compilers-with-david-beazly-a-recur...

But most importantly this thread is about what to do with an educational budget.

And even if he's not a great teacher, spending money to be forced to think about a problem sounds pretty effective.

Like how a paid meetup has a higher percentage of people showing up who RSVP-ed than does a free meetup.

If it were your own money I wouldn't suggest the $1500 fee to everyone so lightly, I agree.

Re: Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

#63

Post by wagslane »

Yuuuge disclaimer: I made it, but Boot.dev is a collection of game-like interactive courses focused on backend web dev. It's all in Python and go for the most part.

I will say I don't think certs are a big deal, and they wouldn't be the reason for doing Boot.dev. Its all about learning the concepts and putting it into practice by building cool stuff

Re: Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

#64

Post by potta_coffee »

giantg2 wrote: post #6
bdcravens wrote: post #5

Certs just aren't that important anymore, but if anything, I'd do the AWS cert. If you just want to improve your skills, a few good Udemy courses will take your far if you follow along.

Some places like to see AWS certs. Doesn't AWS cut a slight rate break based on the number of certified people you have in your org?

I've worked for a couple of companies that get a discount on AWS services if a certain percentage of their employees have AWS certifications.

Re: Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

#65

Post by psykomal »

The Empowered Programmer Cohort (https://www.empoweredcoder.com) seems like a good fit here. I think the syllabus more than justifies the investment (under your budget). I am currently attending this and learning distributed systems from a low-level perspective (think Compare-and-Swap, Lock-free Data Structues, KV Store, Raft, etc) and has been really awesome so far.

Re: Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

#66

Post by t-s »

jjackson5324 wrote: post #17

These are mostly learning resources rather than certifications.... For backend engineering specific, some free & paid resources are - O'Reilly Membership - This is a gold mine. For the $400 I believe you can purchase a yearly membership, where you get access to the entire O'Reilly catalogue. Designing Data Intensive Applications is included of course. They also have some video courses & conference talks in addition t…

+1 to codecrafters. I signed up after seeing this post and the folks behind it are already engaged and interested in feedback, a good sign!

Re: Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

#67

Post by sarupbanskota »

t-s wrote: post #66
jjackson5324 wrote: post #17

These are mostly learning resources rather than certifications.... For backend engineering specific, some free & paid resources are - O'Reilly Membership - This is a gold mine. For the $400 I believe you can purchase a yearly membership, where you get access to the entire O'Reilly catalogue. Designing Data Intensive Applications is included of course. They also have some video courses & conference talks in addition t…

+1 to codecrafters. I signed up after seeing this post and the folks behind it are already engaged and interested in feedback, a good sign!

Thank you for sending feedback!

Re: Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

#68

Post by yla92 »

manifoldgeo wrote: post #57
eatonphil wrote: post #11

Not for OP but for others (since it's above the budget), take a David Beazley course. $1500 and write your own implementation of Raft. Learning more about distributed systems is really one of the best investments you could make as a backend engineer. It's the tech that powers distributed systems like Kubernetes (via Etcd), Consul, Vault, Elasticsearch, Redpanda, Cockroach, Yugabyte, etc. And you'll have to figure out…

I took his Build a Compiler in Python course, and I honestly found it to be lackluster. He had just changed the format, though, and our class was his first of a new wave where he supplied us with no example code, instead making us write it all out by hand. By the end of the five-day course, virtually no one had a working toy compiler of any kind. Maybe a parser and AST representation, but not the whole shebang. His s…

I took the same course around towards the end of 2021. David provided examples and I found that he hit a good balance of "I will let you figure out yourself based on these" vs "let me explain you guys what it's about".

I struggled a bit at the last few days, partially because I was taking the course from the other side of the world (i.e had to stay awake all nights for the course, five days).

However, most of us at least managed the "Function" part. The LLVM and WASM parts, I just watch what David did and didn't attempt them myself.

I also took the SICP course, which I found it to be a better "bang for the bucks". Either way, I have no regret about taking David's courses.

Re: Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

#69

Post by sid1729 »

Currently am doing a cohort which is by empoweredcoder.com he teaches protocols multithreading parallelism distributed system and much more and the best part which I like the most is the connection and people i have met there and they are really amazing. You learn by doing and by colaborating.

Re: Ask HN: Best Tech Courses/Certifications Under $400 for a Back End Engineer?

#70

Post by throwaway167 »

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote: post #35
qaq wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly depends many consulting shops have to have requisite amount of AWS certified professionals to maintain the partnership status with AWS. They highly value people who have appropriate AWS certs.

Yeah, but then you'd have to work in consulting. ;) A related idea is to just take the 400 bucks and spend it on AWS playing around. Spin up a few Kubernetes clusters, try out their various database offerings, maybe see if you can run a load-test and get your play system to auto-scale. That would also require keeping a sharp eye on the billing side to make sure the total cost doesn't go over $400... but, hey, that's…

To add to that: Document it, through a blog or other. Even if that doesn't get read, it's evidence, and hopefully it would.
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