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Why every developer should do side projects?

Yogini Bende on January 04, 2022

Hello folks, Let me start by wishing you all a very happy and healthy new year πŸŽ‰ Because we have just entered the new year and most of us spend ...
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Ravavyr

In the industry a lot of people will tell you that you don't have to "have a passion for it" or have to do "lots of side projects" to become a good developer.
Fact is, I've not met many good developers who don't do side projects, and definitely no great ones.

The reality is, you CAN just "code when working" and still have a decent dev career and still get paid plenty.

But you'll never be the person they turn to when shit hits the fan and/or when they need their best. And most people are ok with that.

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Nano

I hear where you stand, but I think its limiting to not do deliberate practice (side projects are a way of doing that)

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Ravavyr

oh i fully agree, i think the best developers i know all code for fun too.

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Sascha Picard

I agree only up to a certain level. Having side projects helped me very much to get a foot into the industry.
But there are many good reasons why one shifts priorities to not do side projects anymore, like having a Family and preventing burnout (speaking for myself). So saying one should do side projects might create a sense of expectation that cannot be met, e.g. when it comes to interviewing or performance evaluation.

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Deep Parekh

Great article Yogini! A must for beginners looking to build side projects!

I've personally been asked a lot of times about what kind of side projects will help me get interviews at a company or make me stand out from the crowd. I think the best side projects are the ones which you can actually use to solve, improve, or simplify something. The next tier of projects is when you follow a tutorial but significantly improve upon it.

I built a covid19 tracker to display information about covid in a simplified but visually decent way. I'd love if you could check it out and give your feedback: brave-pike-7e4f0d.netlify.app/

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Sanskriti Gupta

Love the ideas you've mentioned here, Yogini. Super useful article! πŸ’―

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Akshay Varshney

What a wonderful article, thanks for writing :)

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kcblaq

Thanks for this amazing article, my projects:

  • Budget app
  • Transport booking app
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frontend

I think that doing side projects give satisfaction and lots of experiences.

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Douglas Mateus

Thanks for sharing, it was what I need :D

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Akshay Adiga

Can’t agree more πŸ™Œ