That is a fair view. Of course there is also a tendency of great engineers doing project in their free time, since they love what they do. There is also the fac

That is a fair view. Of course there is also a tendency of great engineers doing project in their free time, since they love what they do. There is also the fact that there is a higher chance of someone having learned a lot more, if they continuously worked on projects in their free time. There is also a higher chance to find people, who are not just into software development jobs, because they pay well, but because this is what they want to do. So for hiring engineers, I can understand when they hire with a certain bias. Sure, no one should be expecting us to do extra rounds, and sure, one can be a great engineer even without extra rounds, but the tendency is for that to take more years without that drive to explore in ones free time. And that's OK! I think it is fair though, if a company wants to hire a more driven/curious/exploring person.