I'll offer my experience here. I'm aware this likely isn't representative of the industry, but hopefully another data point can be useful. I got my current job

I'll offer my experience here. I'm aware this likely isn't representative of the industry, but hopefully another data point can be useful. I got my current job because of my side projects and codepen portfolio. The team that I came to work with really liked my previous work and we're impressed with my ability. It was great for them to see real projects I'd created and see just how capable I am. While we still had a whiteboard (and other) interview steps, it was the visibility into my work that tipped the scales. The difference, I think, is that I had a collection of small, targeted side projects. Each project didn't take more than a few weeks so that I could complete the idea and move on to another one that would be fun to work on. I think if I spent a lot longer on each project my portfolio would have been much smaller and thus less impactful (unless of they became widely used apps which none of mine did).