[Jach]

Are you kidding? There's tons of things you can do and put on github if you have an embedded systems background. It's just as rich a playground as web or mobile apps. (Ed: not to mention you can at least have a web page dedicated to showing off your most interesting school projects even if you can't release code.) I do agree though that open work isn't necessarily a good filter -- nevertheless fun side project work is a large subculture and it doesn't surprise me if companies want to get people from that group.