> Side projects are not necessarily a great way to get better at engineering, and by no means the only way to get better. If you take on a side project, you do go through the process of defining a product and coding it up, most likely full-stack and hopefully with some interesting technologies, but you’re probably not going to be working with a lot of teammates on a large, complicated codebase with evolving and expanding product requirements and scaling it up and maintaining it over time, which ends up being a lot of what software engineering actually is.
Notwithstanding the fact that working "with a lot of teammates on a large, complicated codebase with evolving and expanding product requirements and scaling it up and maintaining it over time" is not necessarily what "software engineering" entails (or should entail) at every company, I actually think this is why a lot of developers take on side projects: being able to design and build something of one's own using the technologies of one's own choosing can be a lot more satisfying than refactoring code and putting out fires for 8+ hours every day.
Obviously, developers who are adequately stimulated and satisfied by their day jobs probably have less incentive to indulge in side projects, and there's nothing wrong with that, but most people in the industry know that engineering jobs, even at the hottest or most prestigious companies, often leave something to be desired.
Notwithstanding the fact that working "with a lot of teammates on a large, complicated codebase with evolving and expanding product requirements and scaling it up and maintaining it over time" is not necessarily what "software engineering" entails (or should entail) at every company, I actually think this is why a lot of developers take on side projects: being able to design and build something of one's own using the technologies of one's own choosing can be a lot more satisfying than refactoring code and putting out fires for 8+ hours every day.
Obviously, developers who are adequately stimulated and satisfied by their day jobs probably have less incentive to indulge in side projects, and there's nothing wrong with that, but most people in the industry know that engineering jobs, even at the hottest or most prestigious companies, often leave something to be desired.