"But, whether through side projects, blogging, or building a portfolio, I do think that finding a way to publish your learnings is valuable. The nice thing abou

"But, whether through side projects, blogging, or building a portfolio, I do think that finding a way to publish your learnings is valuable. The nice thing about publishing and shipping smaller things on the side is that you do end up building a signal to employers that you have “passion”." Think about what this really says about our industry. Tech companies are incapable of figuring out effective ways to test people they hire, so they rely on social signaling, which involves doing work outside of work for free and then marketing it on the web. It's a crazy and inefficient system, but people who are invested in it keep propping it up. BTW, most companies out there have employee agreements that technically make your side projects their IP.