I'm not sure I like the tacit implication that folks who do lots of side projects are superior engineers or are very passionate about "coding". The assumption

I'm not sure I like the tacit implication that folks who do lots of side projects are superior engineers or are very passionate about "coding". The assumption that "lots of side projects" is somehow a positive attribute (from an employer's perspective with regard to "types" of engineers) is very much a flawed one.