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Discussion on: Do I need to do private side projects to be/become a professional web developer?

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owlcowl profile image
Owlcowl (he/him)

Thanks for taking part in the discussion Kimberly.
You confused me for a second because it seems you and Erica are not on the same page, she said no with an asterisk and you said yes with an asterisk. 😁

Form me you made some good points here and I also love to see the passion when I interview a candidate.
From my point of view we (devs doing interviews) need to be careful though that we don't accidentally create a toxic hiring process.
Erica said it quite well in her post: "A mechanic is still a mechanic, even if they don't work on their own car."
Our area is one of only a few where professionals are almost required to improve their skills constantly in their private time and that puts a lot of pressure on us and even more on new starters.
And I think if we (devs doing interviews) should work against it. That was one of my motivations to write the article above.

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khburnett profile image
Kimberly Burnett (she/her)

I definitely understand the confusion. I loved Erica's answer and agreed with a lot of what she said. I think the details were in the asterisk :D.

I appreciate your perspective that expecting side projects may create a toxic hiring process. I hadn't thought of that before and it's a really good point.

Some of the other questions we sometimes ask are, "Is there technology you'd like to learn more about" and "tell me about the favorite thing you've built - either professionally or personally or in school". Maybe these are better ones to lean on that capture the same information: whether the candidate has a GROWTH mindset and likes what they do.

Thank you for sharing your article and your motivations behind it.