Here is a dark side of side projects (pun unintended). I went to an interview which was a nodejs shop. I was excited as they wanted to see a side project. Most of mine are just things I do for fun. Anyway it was in golang (with lots of control plane like features for a "fun" saas offering). Cto wasnt happy that I had chosen go and wanted to know why I hadn't chosen Node instead. (Never mind my Fe was in typescript). He wasnt happy with any of my explanations and came back with retorts like "well you have async/await so you don't really need goroutines).

First of all nobody should be forced to be judged on side projects alone. There are several talented "family folks" out there. And even if not there are enough "recharge on my time " folks which is totally fair.

Secondly just like in leetcoding interview all it takes is an inexperienced interviewer with a script to degrade the experience!