[_raul]

It took me years to notice a flaw in this approach: it's based in the premise that everyone has time for side projects.

From that point I think about it as a bias. Nowadays I try to assess if the candidates with no public activity on GH and no side projects have the passion and interest I look for, but can't take it further outside of work due to their specific circumstances.

[vladvasiliu]

What's ironic to me is that oftentimes those same companies looking at side projects to judge how "passionate" one is are the ones that expect their employees to "give everything" while on the job, presumably going as far as neglecting their side projects.

[moron4hire]

Time-in-practice is still correlated with skill. If I'm getting someone with "4 years of experience", a person who works on side projects could have 10,000 hours in-practice, vs only 5,000 for someone who doesn't.

I understand not exclusively focusing on people who work on their own to the exclusion of everyone else, but I definitely don't understand this modern push to ignore it as a signal completely. People who don't work side projects are going to need more years of experience to have the same level of practice as those who do.

And frankly, I've been involved in a lot of hiring, and I've yet to see these people who A) don't work on side projects, but B) are actually skilled in their jobs. We give them interviews and it becomes clear they hid in large, ossified, megacorporate teams. They know the one way to do things that is the one template of work they've ever been hired to do, because that is the only experience they have.

If that's your environment, I guess you can have them. I don't have any space for that.

[odshoifsdhfs]

You do know you can also repeat the same 10 hours 1000 times right?

Side projects usually don't have the oversight where you learn and improve so much as when you work in a team. Is like learning to play football by yourself by kicking a ball against your house wall everyday, or play in a team with other players and a coach. You can kick the ball for 8 hours against the wall, but I guarantee it that 1 hour a week in a team setting you will improve much more.

[moron4hire]

And the athlete who plays on a team and practices at home will out-perform their peers who don't practice at home.

I can't believe I have to say this. This is obvious. Every coach knows this.

It's not an exclusive-OR problem.

[odshoifsdhfs]

ACtually, not really! Coaches and sports scientist are actually pushing back on that as it leads to overtraining, and except for the very top of their field, mistakes that need correcting.

Boxing for example (sport I did and helped coaching), unless you are top of your field, isn't recommended to do a lot of 'at home' training as you develop bad habits without supervision (dropping the defense, telegraphing your punch a bit) as you don't have the feedback. Thes mistakes have to be then 'corrected'

[iateanapple]

> Boxing for example

Boxing isn’t a good example because it’s a combat sport which means there is far more training than competing.

When I played football the ratio was close to 1:1 - games played to hours trained and something like 150-200:1 for when I was boxing.

[elpescado]

I doubt that. Your body needs time to recover. If you practice at home in addition to regular workout routine you're likely to overtrain.

[mech422]

You're having to 'explain' this because you've presented no argument except appeals-to-authority and anecdata ('my experience'). This is HN - I would dare say most of us have hired multiple engineers. People are just trying to politely point out that 'your experience' is not necessarily universal.

[scarface74]

The differences are that a top athlete can get paid significantly more than the average athlete on the same team. Also there are only a limited number of spots for a pro athlete.

[sokoloff]

> You do know you can also repeat the same 10 hours 1000 times right?

What’s the likelihood that someone takes their same 10-hour drudgery cycle and doubles down on it by doing the exact same thing in their side project and why does that likelihood round to zero?

[Daishiman]

A few rounds of code reviews by senior engineer probably teaches a lot more IMO.

[scarface74]

I code to make money. I have a passion for being able to feed myself and put a roof over my head. I leave work at the end of the day. I spend time with my family and friends and engaging in hobbies.

If you have an interview process that doesn’t allow you to discern my skillset and I am able to clearly demonstrate my skills without doing a side project, that says a lot about your interview process.

It amazes me when I see companies that aren’t paying at the level of big tech think their company is a special snowflake. I am [1] an average journeyman enterprise developer/architect and sometimes team lead. Pre-Covid, I could just make a few phone calls to my network and have a couple of job offers within a couple of weeks. This is true for most experienced developers who have kept their skills in sync with the market and live in any major city in the US - outside of the west coast.

I have spent my entire 25 year career working at small companies except for my brief stint at a large non tech company 8 years ago and my current job at Big Tech.

[Nursie]

Frankly I have yet to see people who A) spend a lot of time on side projects and B) significantly outshine their peers who don't.

It's a good signal of interest and engagement, but it's far from the only one.

[shoo]

> premise that everyone has time for side projects. From that point I think about it as a bias.

Yes. In many plausible scenarios hiring based on side projects will discriminate against people who don't have much free time: people with responsibilities to look after young children or otherwise care for family, people who never had a job that pays enough to only work 40 hour weeks & who have to work multiple low paid jobs, etc.

[Viliam1234]

> people who don't have much free time: people with responsibilities to look after young children or otherwise care for family

Maybe that's the entire purpose. You don't want to hire people with small kids, because they won't do much of an overtime. But asking people at an interview whether they have kids, and firing them after they say yes, that's legally dangerous. So instead you ask them if they spend a lot of time doing their hobbies, and fire them if they say no. Perfectly legal.

More cynically, if this becomes the norm, even the people who don't enjoy programming in their free time will start coding their "hobby" projects for github, just to be able to get a job. Is that a bad thing (for the employer)? No, that's actually a good thing: it demonstrates willingness to spend your free time doing what the employer requires of you, even before they start paying you. Now that's a model employee!