[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey" post_id=132875 time=1670278837 user_id=3]
Well, this is news. I had a meeting with finance today and apparently my department has a low six figures budget for software and it hasn't been touched this year.

We definitely need stuff. Courses, [/quote]
[list=1][*] try typing "How to " followed by the subject into the YouYube search box. You will be amazed to find often [i]very[/i] high quality content on virtually anything. Some of them use it as a sales pitch for more intensive courses they sell, since you've seen some of howe they teech it can allow you to have a choice for where to actually spend real money.
[*]Check out CuriosityStream, it's less than $20 a year and you might find things related to whatever subject you are interested in learning.
[*]Amazon Kindle has a reader program for the PC. There are often free or low-cost e-books on a wide range of subjects including how to use AWS, write requests, and other computer subjects for free.
[/list]
[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey" post_id=132875 time=1670278837 user_id=3]volume license for IDEs, [/quote]
Have you checked out Eclipse? Originally developed by IBM for internal development, it is free and open source, and has hundreds of plug ins and add-ons for various tasks and programming languages.
[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey" post_id=132875 time=1670278837 user_id=3] I can't get anyone to call me back. What have you guys done in these situations?[/quote]
First, software salesmen only want to sell to stupid people. They can sell them overpriced solutions.

Do you have any networking contacts? Can you call and ask them what they recommend? Do you know of any other companies in the same industry but aren't competitors, e.g. a Cadillac dealer in Los Angeles is not a competitor to one in San Francisco or Las Vegas. Ask them what they use or have used. Try doing a search on "Software to do " followed by whatever you're trying to accomplish.

At least with AWS as the account admin I used to occasionally work with an AWS rep to see if they had any other ways of saving us money after I had exhausted all of the items in the Trusted Advisor tool. Usually with GS and other clients I've worked with I was tasked with not only spinning up the infrastructure in AWS and the build pipelines (usually in Jenkins) but also keeping all the costs in check.

As far as software licenses for things like Tower, IDEs, etc. at least at GS we would basically do a poll to see how many people need/want a certain tool. This is because in some cases you've got guys with completely viable open-source solutions the are more comfortable with for certain things. Then we would just buy them for a year and bundle where possible.

Well, this is news. I had a meeting with finance today and apparently my department has a low six figures budget for software and it hasn't been touched this year.

We definitely need stuff. Courses, AWS, a "hydrate and release" db solution, eLearning, volume license for IDEs, and ICE. I can't get anyone to call me back. What have you guys done in these situations?