[dns_snek]

I don't think tinkering outside work/class throughout your life is required to be a good programmer, but it teaches you extremely valuable skills early on, such as setting goals and working to achieve them, breaking problems down into manageable pieces. You will encounter various issues of all kinds and learn how to look for solutions online. You also learn how to find and use documentation, you'll probably encounter industry-standard tools such as Git, learn the basics of Unix-like systems and a lot more, depending on what you're tinkering with.

I wouldn't expect someone who's 35 with 10 years of professional experience to tinker outside of work, but I'd raise an eyebrow at someone looking for a programming job straight out of college who doesn't have a single side project to share, no matter how small or insignificant.

To me that says that they don't enjoy programming, it would be like hiring a mechanic who's never worked on their own car. Programming can be hard and stressful so you need to enjoy it to persevere through problems that leave you scratching your head, otherwise you'll quickly burn out and be out looking for another job.

I'm not advocating for people to sit in a dark room 12 hours a day and grind through Leetcode problems, or to spend all of their free time programming to prove themselves and "get ahead of the competition". However I've never met a programmer who's never showed interest in tinkering at any stage of their life.