They tell you if you want to be competitive as a developer, you have to go above and beyond. They tell you to work outside of work: contribute to open-source projects, learn new programming languages and frameworks, build apps, write a blog, amass followers on social media.

Since 2014, when I took my first programming job, I've been doing all of those things. I'm active on GitHub. I maintain a popular open-source tool. I ran a software micro-startup for three years. I know Rust, Dart, Vue and React, none of which I've ever used at work. I've published three mobile apps and a handful of websites. Between my blog, the DEV community, Medium, and the Stack Overflow Blog, I've reached hundreds of thousands of readers. I even wrote a book.

Want to know how job interviews go for me?

The same way they go for everyone else.

First, I send in an application online. Then I spend about a week trying to get in touch with someone at the company via email or LinkedIn, since online applications are useless. Then there's a phone call with a recruiter. Then one or two technical interviews, which half the time are just vocabulary quizzes (the industry sucks at interviewing). Then they make me an offer, or not—and if they do, it's strictly based on years of experience. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess the average hiring manager spends about ten seconds skimming through the second and third pages of my resume, where my non-work projects live.

In ten years, I think there's been one time when my side projects materially changed the direction of an interview. (And they didn't end up making me an offer, anyway.)

If this sounds like a lot of moaning and complaining, well, fair enough. That's how I feel today. I don't think it's unreasonable to be disappointed when you've put in the work and the promised results are nowhere to be seen.

On the positive side, I don't think all that time has been wasted. I like coding. Nothing is a waste of time if you enjoy it. Besides, I've learned a lot by doing it on my own, with no safety net or guardrails; a lot of my seniority at work is due to the intuition I've built with side projects.

But I've got a new attitude going forward. I'm done saying "this is for my portfolio" or "this will help me get my next job." It's not, and it won't. From now on, I'm coding because I like doing it and I want to. It may not look any different from the outside, but I'll be operating with different expectations. And if, on occasion, I want to abandon a project or spend a year doing Sudoku after work instead of pushing commits, I will.

Has your experience been different? Have your side projects turned into job opportunities? Let's hear your side of it in the comments.