
Ask HN: Where to spend company’s education budget? - cryptozeus
Our company offers few thousand dollars each year for employees to use it of loose it towards education. I have was thinking of using them for conference however They are no longer happening so bought few books. Still have some money left so looking for good suggestions.
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AlchemistCamp
I'd spend some on screencasts, but then again I _would_ say that. Check out:

\- [https://laracasts.com](https://laracasts.com) (PHP, Vue, related topics)

\- [https://gorails.com](https://gorails.com) (Rails and other tech useful for
Rails devs)

\- [https://vueschool.io](https://vueschool.io) (Vue, Nuxt, etc)

\- [https://fireship.io](https://fireship.io) (Angular and Firebase)

\- [https://alchemist.camp](https://alchemist.camp) (Elixir, Phoenix and
complementary skills)

I'd also strongly recommend spending a good portion on books. No Starch,
Pragmatic Bookshelf and Manning are all great publishers. Books are so cheap
there's no reason not to buy a dozen or more a year and refer to them only as
needed.

Manning regularly runs 50% off discounts and I've gotten at least 20 No Starch
books in Humble Bundles for even less. Pragprog discounts are rarer, but
they're still a great value.

For the cost of a single US conference, you could literally subscribe to every
screencast site I listed above, buy 25 tech books and still come out ahead.

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muzani
Pluralsight is a good place to spend it - it's a little expensive but the
courses are top notch and done by professionals, for professionals looking to
cram.

Masterclass.com looks good too. Lots of non-code related things like writing
and cooking by experts in their respective fields. Considering most of us
don't know any professional actors or Michelin chefs, this is a fast way to
pick up skills into the top 20% as cheaply as possible.

Plenty of books out there, but this is not the thread to list them.

Would it cover fitness? A personal trainer or dietician will take you further
than most advice from friends and the internet.

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el_dev_hell
Just an aside on Masterclass.com. You may want to manage your expectations a
little before clicking buy.

I purchased 3 Masterclass (before they went recurring). The production quality
is insane, but the content is closer to infotainment than education. I have no
problem with infotainment and found the Chris Voss negotiation series helpful.

The James Patterson course is interesting (if you're a fan), but I didn't find
it helpful at all for my writing.

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muzani
I haven't tried it myself and the teasers looked nice, but thanks for the
review.

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alexmingoia
Buy expensive textbooks with good resale value and then resell them to
transfer that educational budget to your personal bank account.

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sethammons
This is unethical.

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auslegung
Is there relevant hardware you could purchase? Maybe an expert in your field
will take money so you can pick his/her brain for a few hours?

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cryptozeus
No hardware unfortunately, separate budget for that

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thedevindevops
Question: Are you a manager spending your department's education budget or are
you the victim it's being spent on?

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austincheney
Licensing, certifications, and tests.

