I don't see working on personal projects as doing personal development. What I do then is riddled with bugs, no unit-tests or documentation, and with no sense of project or time management.
Don't get me wrong if a personal project to you is production code, well then to me that is a hobby or maybe you are doing it to pad your resume, in which case sure it does seem like a good signal.
Overall though you have to have unproductive fun and that's what personal projects are for me, and this notion that anything tied to code equals resume is really insidious. Like when do we ever get away from work? Hustle culture seems to have made it's way into a white collar job, I need to tune out.
I don't see working on personal projects as doing personal development. What I do then is riddled with bugs, no unit-tests or documentation, and with no sense of project or time management.
Don't get me wrong if a personal project to you is production code, well then to me that is a hobby or maybe you are doing it to pad your resume, in which case sure it does seem like a good signal.
Overall though you have to have unproductive fun and that's what personal projects are for me, and this notion that anything tied to code equals resume is really insidious. Like when do we ever get away from work? Hustle culture seems to have made it's way into a white collar job, I need to tune out.