[AndrewKemendo]

>Maybe if you turned a side project into a real business, or were a senior contributor on a large, long-lived open-source project, or something like that.

Well that is exactly the point.

The idea of some amazing "code monkey" detached from real life requirements, constraints and development timelines is a fiction and does not represent reality. The best developers have a deep understanding of the tools and the applications and it is that devotion that I am referencing.

There are in fact people that think in terms of building new things through code ALL THE TIME - and then implement them. Those people are going to have an advantage in the hiring process.