Finding better ways to upskill is a consistent topic that comes up when we talk to you about what’s top of mind. It’s no wonder when the one constant in our industry is change with new techniques, frameworks, tools, and languages emerging all the time.

Developers by nature are extremely self-reliant when it comes to dealing with this change. Over 90% of the respondents on StackOverflow’s 2017 Developer Survey indicated that they were at least partially self-taught. Whether through coding boot camps, online courses, online forums/Q+A, or joining an OSS project, you are using a variety of ways to level up your skills and hone your craft for work and for fun.

Source: 2017 Stack Overflow Developer Survey – https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#education

With this in mind, we’re always looking for ways to help you invest in your own development. Today I’m happy to announce several new resources that we hope will do just that:

Dive into Data Science

One topic of particular interest lately for many is data science – more and more of you are being asked to work on data-intensive projects or are simply interested in building a stronger foundation of knowledge to take on more advanced analytics and ML projects in the future. We’re pleased to offer a subscription to DataCamp which allows you to master data analysis from any browser, at your own pace, tailored to your needs and expertise. Whether learning R, Python or Data Visualization, DataCamp provides an intuitive learning platform with interactive lessons, engaging videos, with no need for software to install or hardware requirements. All Visual Studio subscribers receive a complimentary 3-month subscription and Dev Essentials members receive a complimentary 2-month subscription to DataCamp.

Explore New Career Moves while Building Technical and Non-Technical Skills

We’re excited to partner with LinkedIn for the first time to bring our subscribers LinkedIn Learning. Building off Lynda.com’s catalog LinkedIn Learning brings together technical training with interesting non-technical subjects like leadership, management, marketing and design (many of which we hope will be of interest to all of you, but especially those looking to pursue an entrepreneurial path). On top of this LinkedIn Learning can help you connect with others in your area of specialization, explore new areas, and get job/salary insights. Visual Studio Enterprise subscribers receive a complimentary 6-month LinkedIn Learning subscription and Visual Studio Professional, Visual Studio Test Professional and MSDN Platforms subscribers and Dev Essentials members receive a complimentary 3-month subscription to LinkedIn Learning

Build Hard Core Technical Skills

As many of you know we’ve partnered with Pluralsight for the past few years to provide our subscribers with on-demand access to a digital ecosystem of learning tools, skill tests, interactive labs and live mentoring. Today, we are announcing changes to the current benefit: for a limited time, all Visual Studio subscribers will have full access to the entire training catalog from Pluralsight. Enterprise subscribers receive a complimentary 6-month subscription, and Professional, Test Pro and MSDN Platforms subscribers get 3-month complimentary subscriptions. Visual Studio Dev Essentials members continue to receive 3-month subscriptions to access Pluralsight’s full catalog.

Faster Access to Help when you need It

Getting your Azure development questions answered quickly is important. To help, we’re announcing two new resources:

• Azure Forums: We are now offering one day response time to questions across 21 forum topics ranging from Azure API Management to Azure SQL Databases. Staffed by community members and the Azure engineering team, subscribers can trust their question will be answered by Azure experts. Check out the Azure Community support tile on my.visualstudio.com to access these forums.
• Azure Advisory Chat: Azure Advisory Chat is a helpful resource for you as you build Azure solutions using the Visual Studio tools and services.  Chat is a real-time way to get guidance on any Azure questions, big or small.  Our expert support engineers are available 24 hours a day (M-F) to help you whether you are just getting started or already deploying business-critical workloads on Azure.  Support engineers will work with subscribers to set up new tenants, provide basic support for identity and networking, discuss approaches to application migrations, and much more.  Visual Studio Enterprise and Visual Studio Professional subscribers now have access to this benefit.

Activate your new benefits to get started right away.  Visit the Visual Studio site, to learn more about our developer subscriptions and programs. For additional information or help with activation of any of these, please visit our documentation site.

If you missed any of the event or want to watch the on-demand trainings, check out the Connect(); page.

We want to hear from you. Let us know what you’d like to see by sharing your feedback, suggestions, thoughts, and ideas in the comments below!