Comment by ck425 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ck425 | Hacker News Reader

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> I'm just boggled at how many people appear to find it unimaginable and unrelatable that a technologist likes technology enough to mess with it for fun, even after work.

It's not that I can't understand it. I don't have that urge personally but I can see where it comes from and if that makes you happy go for it! The reason I personally get so defensive and anti side project is because as someone who's very defensive of their non-work time (due to spending it on other productive hobbies that bring more joy into my life than anything else) I've experienced a lot of colleagues/managers who have tried pressure or belittle me into doing side projects. It's been implied that I'm not a 'real' engineer or that I can't be successful in my career if I don't. And frankly I resent that attitude because it's bullshit and it tries to take away time from the things that make my life truly joyful.

As you say do what makes you happy, side projects or not. Unfortunately a lot of folk on the side projects side don't/won't accept them as optional if you want to be seen as a competent engineer.

I think your attitude is right, and you just have to ignore the "what?!?! no side projects!?!?" people. I've known plenty of extremely competent engineers who either don't do side projects or simply don't want to invite their coworkers into talking about their personal lives. I do a ton of small side projects and I haven't been asked about any of them in interviews, nor have I advertised my github on my resume or anything like that.

Out of all 9 members of my current team, the only ones I can remember ever talking about any side projects are the dev manager, who is obviously addicted to setting up tech stacks like he did when he was a developer (we recently compared notes about our experience using prometheus and grafana on home servers, for example), and one guy whose side project is a heavy metal band. Everyone else? Nothing I've been told about. Maybe they occupy their time with being a parent, or SCCA racing, or mountain climbing, or building dollhouses; I don't know and it's not really my business.

I think there's a lot of value in being able to confidently say "yeah, I've got different hobbies <shrug>."

I think side projects can open career doors that you wouldn't otherwise have, and not doing side projects can close some doors. There is a probabilistic value of pursuing those doors and a cost to the time spent doing so, and it's fine to decide it is or isn't worth it. I'd happily do side projects even if there was zero chance they'd help my career.

Two of the best engineers I've ever worked with did basically nothing on the side that resembled a technical side project. The worst engineer I ever worked with also did no side projects. And I knew brilliant engineers who were big into things like the Hacker Cup or aerial robotics, just for fun. It's tempting to think that if we ourselves are competent, people who act similarly must also be competent. But the longer my career goes on, the less weight I place on seeing someone does or does not do side projects.

IME, once you get your foot in the door (in any career, not just software), side projects, hobbies and such become irrelevant to securing a job compared to real world experience. All that really matters in the initial stages of career progression is to prove to potential employers that you can do whatever work they may ask you to do. I think some employers do like to see initiative, but that can be conveyed during an interview, you don't necessarily need a starred out Git repo to demonstrate you are passionate about software, and of course, a Git project is not enough to show employers you are passionate about software.

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