That depends on what the 'side project' is. There are lot of people in the web development world who regularly practice interview coding/algo/ds questions in o

That depends on what the 'side project' is. There are lot of people in the web development world who regularly practice interview coding/algo/ds questions in office hours. They have to because the same company at which they are working expects candidates to have extraordinary levels of skills in competitive programming, which by the way is not possible without day-to-day practice. Does this qualify as a 'side project'?