Yup this. I've interviewed a bunch of people and been on a bunch of post-interview discussions of candidates. I've never looked at or asked about side projects,

Yup this. I've interviewed a bunch of people and been on a bunch of post-interview discussions of candidates. I've never looked at or asked about side projects, and nobody else has ever mentioned anything about the candidates' side projects either. From an interviewer's standpoint, it's much better to have a standard set of questions that you give every candidate, so you can judge candidates against each other relatively fairly and objectively. Assuming a candidate has any side projects that demonstrate any expertise at all, it's a ton of work to dig into one of them enough to get an idea of how that person works. It's almost never worth the time, just ask your standard questions instead.