
How much software engineer should invest in career growth - wkoszek
http://www.koszek.com/blog/2017/02/06/how-much-software-engineer-should-invest-in-career-growth/
======
Namrog84
While I definitely feel investing in one's self is worthwhile. I am not sure
if this is the right approach to think about the issue. The author compares
the % of what companies spend on R&D and correlates that with what an
individual should spend on educational material per year.

I'd be more inclined to say it should be a % of your time. Instead of 5% of
your salary, perhaps 5% minimum of your time per year should be spent towards
learning. Though probably more is better? It'd be an easy trap to get into of
spending 5% on "education/R&D" and not actually fully leveraging or utilizing
it. One could blow that easily on a VM or server and some books and just feel
like they've accomplished something when in reality they have barely leveraged
what they have. Though if you are pursuing free/low cost education material,
that small costs here and there shouldn't be fretted over.

~~~
wkoszek
Time I haven't yet covered. This will be topic of some of my new articles. But
on the budget, I think I showed exactly the opposite: I show how to allocate
like a business. In a smart way, with a proper justification and without
overspending.

------
VLM
The article assumes all learning is academic from authorities and never from
doing. WRT doing at only $280/mon at a reasonable billing rate I could burn
thru my learning budget on a saturday afternoon and barely keep up with the
times much less get ahead.

The other problem is it assumes all learning is of the mind, but if you get it
in your head to get involved in physical aspects of the field, then some FPGA
boards and oscilloscopes and next thing you know you've blown your budget
until 2030 unless you're careful. Arguably even "mind only" developers who buy
anything more than a raspberry pi should account for their annual $3000 mac
laptop and $500 phone (and its $1200/yr of phone service) and pretty soon you
have no budget left over just buying hardware alone.

~~~
wkoszek
You're right, I was thinking about software engineers in software field when
writing this. But I actually came from embedded field, and I did use embedded
boards and some equipment before, and there are ways to get it cheaper.
Development board is maybe $400-$500 and the scope, if you lease it or buy it
via monthly payments, should fit in this 5%.

~~~
Eridrus
Even when thinking of software you sometimes need special hardware or
software, lots of recent machine learning tools need a GPU to run well, so
that's another $500+

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codingdave
Content aside, I'm not at all sure that self-posting your own blog post as a
"Show HN" is appropriate.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
How is it not? You want to show HN something you did to get feedback on it.
Seems within the spirit on "Show HN" IMO.

For instance I've posted a library I wrote on HN which gave me some good
feedback to act on. If I had waited until someone else posted it for feedback
it likely would have never happened.

~~~
detaro
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

> _Show HN is for something you 've made that other people can play with._

> _Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can 't be tried out, so they
> can't be Show HNs._

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Oh. Hmm. Honestly blog posts can provide a _ton_ of value to the community and
some developers like to write. I feel like blog post is a different category
than sign-up pages and fundraisers and should be okay.

But that's just my opinion. Spamming blog posts will get pushed down anyway.

~~~
codingdave
Nobody is saying blog posts cannot be shared on HN - we are saying they do not
fit the category of "Show HN". That is a particular category, with specific
implications.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
No I understood you I just didn't really agree with the criteria used for Show
HN is all. It seems to bar spam + blogs. I think blogs can still fit the
criteria just fine.

But that's just my opinion.

------
bastijn
This made me think of an earlier study performed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Strategy&, a business unit within PriceWaterhouseCoopers, has been publishing
an annual report of the top 1000 most innovative companies in the world for
over 12 years. In that time, they have found that there is no statistically
significant relationship between R&D spending and sustained financial
performance[0]. This finding applies to total R&D spend, as well as R&D
spending as a percent of revenues.[1]

Spending on R&D is not related to growth in sales or profits, increases in
market capitalization or shareholder returns.[2] In every annual report that
Strategy& have published, the top 10 most innovative companies are often not
the top 10 spenders on R&D.

[0] AlisonSmith(2014 ). R &Dspendingunlinkedtofinancialperformance,studyshows.
T heFinancialTimes.
[https://www.ft.com/content/cdfe1b2c-5abf-11e4-b449-00144feab...](https://www.ft.com/content/cdfe1b2c-5abf-11e4-b449-00144feab7de#axzz3I5ez9PAL)

[1] BarryJaruzelski,JohnLoehr,andRichardHolman(2014). T
heGlobalInnovation1000:ProvenPathstoInnovationSuccess. [http://www.strategy-
business.com/article/00295](http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00295)

[2] BarryJaruzelski,JohnLoehr,andRichardHolman(2012). T
heGlobalInnovation1000:MakingIdeasWork [http://www.strategy-
business.com/article/00140](http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00140)

~~~
wkoszek
This is correct and I could believe it, but I haven't covered impact on
salary. In my analogy the career growth would probably translate to growth
potential, but now actual money. Up to some point I think with career growth
the salary will grow, and then the plateau stage will come. I suspect this is
what companies are seeing.

