For sure I wasn't the software developer I once was when I was interviewing. I'd been in an architect role at a gargantuan company and mostly POCing things for a few years. Then I went on a 7 month road trip where the majority of my brain was dedicated to learning Spanish.

However I can confidently say that it only took a few weeks of being thrown back in the mix to shake the rust off and get going again.

If I was an employer and could extend contracts at fairly low risk, I'd give devs with a strong resume and a demonstrable open-source library a chance - despite them being a bit shaky on the whiteboard.