How should I spend my companies $500 education budget?

Question

I'm a software engineer working on web related tech (servers, websites) for a big well known tech company. My company offers $500 to spend on education (books, courses, etc...) What should I spend it on? Our company uses ruby, typescript mainly for the area I work in. I've been working for about 15 years so I've absorbed most of the basics without reading.

solardev · Accepted Answer

How about some specific domain that interests you? Graphics, ML, GIS, data science, devops, firmware, crypto, integrated circuits, whatever?
Or learn more about a specific industry that interests you? Film, games, energy, natural resources, healthcare, accounting, finance, whatever?
Software is your pencil, and you might have great penmanship, but there's still infinite topics to create stories around.

mynegation · Answer

Not exactly learning, more like training, but for me the biggest ROI was Leetcode. Probably not something you want to expense through your company though, I paid with my own funds.Outside of this, I am paying for DeepLearning.ai specializations on Coursera and enjoying it a lot. The material itself can be reconstructed from free web resources and textbooks but the value is in systematic syllabus, quizzes and programming assignments.

rl1987 · Answer

O'Reilly Learning - $499/yr. for a large library of technical books, videos and a selection of webinars.

bitxbitxbitcoin · Answer

Attend local events. Buy books. Try a new language.

ilovhn · Answer

Some cloud course/cert exam, like AWS dev associate, would't be a bad idea.

cosmodisk · Answer

Pluralsight, LinkedIn learning, Packt publishing.

StayTrue · Answer

Are you interested in traveling to conferences?