Where to spend company’s education budget?

I'd spend some on screencasts, but then again I would say that. Check out:

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

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

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

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

- 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.

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.

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

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?

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

Licensing, certifications, and tests.