I seriously think that "personal projects" are very underrated when it comes to hiring. If I see that someone has a lot of personal projects and has lots of time in Factorio they probably know how to code. I'm not sure you can rank them as Junior/Senior too effectively as these two things don't require much leadership, but you can basically skip the trivial phone interview questions at this point.
It's a great tool for junior developers. If someone hasn't had a dev job before, then a personal project -- even something simple like a twitter bot -- is almost a requirement in my eyes. IME, it is a strong signal for capability at that skill level.
Most higher-level devs don't build personal projects. I've worked with plenty of ridiculously capable people who work 9-5 and go home to their family. If anything, diligently keeping set hours is probably a stronger signal for a good senior candidate than personal projects are. A good senior candidate should be doing the thing they want to do already (thus, no need for side projects), or be capable of getting everything they need done for their job in 8 hours or less.
I doubt jobs for urban planners ask what cities you design in your free time. I doubt jobs for lawyers ask what cases you've argued in your free time. Why do we ask what software you've built in your free time for software engineering interviews?
Because in software personal projects are easy to do. It just takes drive and skill, which are both relevant skills. Passion as also valuable, it tends to show that people are willing to learn and have interest in the type of work that they will be doing.
Artist and even urban planners regularly have a portfolio, I don't see how this is any different.
It also takes the privilege of time. For example, a single childless person likely has more time for personal projects than a single parent of 3. This does not mean one is a better candidate than the other.
> Passion as also valuable, it tends to show that people are willing to learn and have interest in the type of work that they will be doing.
You can have both of those things without "passion".
Why not ask? Programming is a craft, and having a showcase could demonstrate initiative, capabilities, and inventiveness. They're concrete samples of your work.
Aside, there seems to be a swath of people who seem bizarrely resentful of personal projects. Yes, we get it, not EVERYONE in the universe has sufficient free time. Bla bla bla, maybe cut down on Netflix.
> Aside, there seems to be a swath of people who seem bizarrely resentful of personal projects
I wouldn't say anyone is resentful, just rightfully annoyed. It's not bizarre. I just don't think we as an industry should require everyone dedicate every waking moment to working. It's not healthy. Surgeons don't do surgery in their free time and are not asked about it in interviews.
> Yes, we get it, not EVERYONE in the universe has sufficient free time. Bla bla bla, maybe cut down on Netflix.
I think the implication of not having enough free time is that a person does not have enough free time to do things like watch enough Netflix to free up enough time to work more.
I would argue that if you consider your personal project to be a form of work, then something is wrong. If the principal reason that you're working on your own personal projects is to be able to pad out your resume, then I agree with you.
I don't think surgery is a good analogy. Engineering is a field where you're actually producing something, such as a product, that you can share and be proud of.
Why wouldn't I want to take every possible factor into consideration? If I have two people, one of whom has a github with lots of personal projects and the other one does not, I'm naturally going to get a better sense of the github developer in terms of their overall capabilities.
That doesn't automatically make him the better candidate but it definitely gives me more information to act on.
If people don't want to or can't work on personal projects then that's fine, but I'm not going to ignore the people who are passionate about building their own stuff.
Not unreasonably. Like it or not, at else being equal someone with more current experience is probably the better employee.
There's this feeling that employers should just take the next person who fits some quota because to pick and choose is to be biased which has somehow become a bad phrase. My employer literally pays me to be biased. My job skills include having appropriate and helpful biases.
often in multiplayer factorio playthroughs you get one player who becomes the defacto "lead dev". it takes some nontrivial organization to get subgoals completed in a way that people aren't blocking each other. a common mistake is two players building separate factories too close together, which leads to some very messy solutions and limits how much the throughput can be upgraded.
