Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

Started a new side-project on the weekend (after a long long hiatus of just focusing on day job). Phase 1 was simply getting the stack up and running (PostgreSQL-backed, Python gRPC service taking gRPC-web through Envoy to a React front-end). Took some fighting through the setup to get a full-stack existence proof, ideas that arose during the working session:

side-project TODO #1 - Write a blog post about getting this all setup using current versions and push a public github repo with the setup to help other out.

side-project idea #2 - Build a micro-PaaS where a customer can define a gRPC interface, Python module implementing that, and with a single command, push this to a live serving endpoint.

side-project idea #3 - I need a state machine as part of my application logic, TODO: write a Python non-ephemeral state machine library that, with a simple Python internal DSL, backs state machine persistence onto a PostgreSQL table, handle automatic schema updates as the state machine is changed / versioned.

Literally not enough time to do any of these things though :)

My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged.

I sense you've never been in a position where you have $3,000 in the bank, your wife is depending on you to get through college, and you have to get a job or you lose your apartment.

Out here dropping stories about Evan Spiegel; gimme a break. Most people don't know any CEOs, PMs, or hiring managers.

The funny part is, I agree with your premise. You are indeed presenting the best way of opening doors. It's worked for me, and has opened many doors.

But only when I was in a better position. Till then, it was one of the worst things I could have done. Focusing on playing the hiring game would have put me in a much stronger position.

The comment you made is slightly out of touch. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think you'll maybe look back on it in 10 years or so with a wince.

In the situation I described above, where you absolutely need that job, all the people you mention have a good chance of forgetting about you due to day-to-day politics. Guess who won't? That recruiter. Because they get a cut of your salary.

To the extent that they show that you have really accomplished something difficult they can be very impressive and differentiate you from other candidates. E.g. in terms of high school extracurriculars, if, say, you've reached the title of chess grandmaster that's impressive, if you went to chess club practice a couple times a week and were just decent at it that's not going to help.

As a software engineer, if you've built a site with millions of page views or written an open source library that many engineers have heard of, that definitely opens doors. (Though even then, maybe not in the way you're expecting. Any given recruiter still might not care or might not be able to remove the red tape for you just because of that. But you'll likely have certain unique opportunities become available). If you've thrown together a few sites in your free time and then moved on to other things, it's not that impressive.

This is like a writer telling you to "forget blogs/articles/novels/stories and focus on your newspaper writing job".

"I don’t want to make this blog post a rant against side projects. In fact, I’m advocating the exact opposite. Continue to do as many side projects as ever, code on nights and weekends if you want too, but don’t think about how they could be useful to you to get a new job. Don’t do all the tutorials you find about Vue.js, but use this weird technology that you saw yesterday on Hacker News. Don’t think about what are the best blog post topics that could expand your personal branding, but write poetry or a review of the last movie you saw. Create the apps, services, websites, or video games you want to use. This may not make your portfolio or your public image convincing for the next recruiter you’ll meet, but this is how you will be able to express all that you have in you and end up affirming yourself. At least, you should end having something meaningful to show, something to be proud about."