[TSiege]

Great advice! I would also add it that don't make what you do for work your hobby. Some on here might disagree with me, but I've found programming in my free time just feels like I'm at work.

Explore new hobbies while you have down time. If engineering is your thing, give woodworking or machining a try. Maybe take up a sport or cycling, physical activity is great for your mental health. Just try being more outdoors

[necessary]

This has become tough for me recently. I’ve become more active recently and have picked up language learning and swimming related hobbies, but I’ve realized my day job doesn’t teach me anything new. Additionally, since I’m also early in my career, I realized I don’t have many personal side projects under my belt to build a “portfolio”. So now I’m in a debacle where I’m burnt out at work for a myriad of reasons (shoddy remote development environment being the main one), and I don’t want to code as a hobby anymore, but I feel that I must so that I can change jobs.

[ironlake]

I've been a software developer for over 20 years and never showed a portfolio as part of a hiring process. Also, I take time out of my workday to learn stuff because my work doesn't teach me anything new either.

[mrtranscendence]

My employer theoretically codifies this by requesting that we spend X amount of our time on learning and development. Unfortunately, even when time is blocked out for that, most people seem to just work on their backlog.

[thatguymike]

Depending on your exact field and desires, but you may very well not need a portfolio. If you’re going for very design-heavy frontend job then maybe, but after I got some work experience nobody needed to see code I wrote in my spare time (which I have none of).

I wouldn’t let that stop you. Just start applying.