Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

I mostly agree with you, but the side project can be a huge factor in differentiation between candidates, either at the resume or interview stage.

My rules for the ideal portfolio ready side project:

1. It is "complete". Not just started but something that actually works. This means that a side project needs to be something which you can actually finish. No matter how great your code looks, it will be outweighed by code that works.

2. The problem it can solve can be described in 10 seconds.

3. The interviewer will not be able to sketch it out in their mind in under a minute. While the problem solved may actually be quite simple to implement, it is best if it's just outside the interviewer's knowledge.

Actually publishing a usable library, even something trivial, provides great separation at the resume level and gives you something specific to discuss in the interview.

The easiest examples I could think of would be a library that does some math. Odds are the interviewer doesn't know how to do trig functions on a sphere, but it is something easy to look up and implement. You can describe it quickly. No amount of time will help them figure it out. Some people's eyes will just glaze over and they'll assume you're really smart (don't go into too much detail on these guys, show them your communication skills instead).

The only thing that would peek my interest when interviewing someone would be something that is actually finished and does something useful. Having dealt with a project long term and stuck to it is also a plus.

I don't spend a ton of time mastering algorithms for interviews. Maybe I should. But studying a canned set of specific formulas is about as fun as memorizing a Math textbook. I've found that I become a better programmer by focusing on what's interesting to me. Often times one can guess at a pretty good solution in an interview by simply having tried to make enough things fast enough, modular enough, DRY enough, etc. My basic hypothesis is that most interviewers wanna know you can think how to make things easier to reason about, faster, can ship something, and the you have enough depth to help them in a meaningful way.

Agree with this 100%. It's soul sucking and destroying but unfortunately coding interviews today are entirely about competitive programming and not about what you create.

So you're best off knowing how to derive an O(N) dynamic programming solution to everything on Codility/HackerRank/LeetCode/ACM-ICPC coding challenges.

It depends on what your definition of "getting jobs" is.

I haven't looked for a job for years but I get freelance / consulting gig opportunities presented to me on a pretty regular basis.

Most of those opportunities come from a combination of side projects, open source contributions, having a blog and teaching online courses.

Now, I'm not sure if that's what you meant but in the above life style you don't need a resume or know how to take interviews. You don't even need a formal education.

People just come to you, already knowing beforehand that they want to work with you. You already have the job before you even know what it's about.