When hiring, I am a big fan of side projects as a substitute for strong work experience. If you've been working as a barista but coding in your spare time, cool

When hiring, I am a big fan of side projects as a substitute for strong work experience. If you've been working as a barista but coding in your spare time, cool! You might have a great career ahead of you in software engineering... maybe you're right for the team. Your portfolio matters. (The converse is true, too. If you're been coding at work all day but pursuing your passion for coffee at night, maybe you'll make a great barista or roaster! Go for it!) But. Holding a demanding engineering job and doing a lot of engineering on the side are nearly mutually exclusive. I've done a big side project or two, but only when I was basically underemployed at my day job. Slumming it, really. I've had other jobs where it took everything I had just to keep up with the demands of the job and keep up with my talented coworkers. I sure didn't have any engineering juice left over in me at the end of the day. Especially not if I wanted to maintain healthy relationships with other human beings and my family. There are only so many hours in a week. So, if you demand your hires spent time outside of work on side projects? You're going to have a strong bias that favors people who (a) have been slacking or underemployed (b) are not really into the whole "human relationships" thing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with living one's life that way, but you are certainly excluding a lot of healthy and talented people if you essentially insist upon only hiring from that group.