It's not that I can't understand it. I don't have that urge personally but I can see where it comes from and if that makes you happy go for it! The reason I personally get so defensive and anti side project is because as someone who's very defensive of their non-work time (due to spending it on other productive hobbies that bring more joy into my life than anything else) I've experienced a lot of colleagues/managers who have tried pressure or belittle me into doing side projects. It's been implied that I'm not a 'real' engineer or that I can't be successful in my career if I don't. And frankly I resent that attitude because it's bullshit and it tries to take away time from the things that make my life truly joyful.
As you say do what makes you happy, side projects or not. Unfortunately a lot of folk on the side projects side don't/won't accept them as optional if you want to be seen as a competent engineer.
Out of all 9 members of my current team, the only ones I can remember ever talking about any side projects are the dev manager, who is obviously addicted to setting up tech stacks like he did when he was a developer (we recently compared notes about our experience using prometheus and grafana on home servers, for example), and one guy whose side project is a heavy metal band. Everyone else? Nothing I've been told about. Maybe they occupy their time with being a parent, or SCCA racing, or mountain climbing, or building dollhouses; I don't know and it's not really my business.
I think there's a lot of value in being able to confidently say "yeah, I've got different hobbies <shrug>."
Two of the best engineers I've ever worked with did basically nothing on the side that resembled a technical side project. The worst engineer I ever worked with also did no side projects. And I knew brilliant engineers who were big into things like the Hacker Cup or aerial robotics, just for fun. It's tempting to think that if we ourselves are competent, people who act similarly must also be competent. But the longer my career goes on, the less weight I place on seeing someone does or does not do side projects.
If that results in skills useful at work, or for finding work, that's a nice but entirely secondary benefit. The more important benefit is burnout prevention - because I too "don't get paid to do the interesting things that first attracted" me to software, or science and technology in general.
> I'm just boggled at how many people appear to find it unimaginable and unrelatable that a technologist likes technology enough to mess with it for fun, even after work.
Me too. I sometimes wonder if I'm not missing out, but try as I might, I don't enjoy the "normal" stuff as much as I enjoy intellectual stimulation. I also sometimes wonder if this isn't because my eyes just don't get tired from screens. I can look at computer screens 16 hours straight, and my eyes don't get dry or itchy. I had co-workers who had to use saline drops at work, and I can understand if they didn't want to look at any screen when they got home.
I enjoy going hiking or going swimming in a lake or river or going to movies with friends when that was still a thing, but it's mostly experiencing, whereas programming side projects is creating. I much prefer creating over experiencing.
I don't have the eye fatigue, either. My hunch is it's because I turn my display brightness way down, down far enough that coworkers insist they can't see my screen when I show them something. It seems like colleagues keep their screens near full brightness. I could imagine that being tough to look at all day.
I realize that's also a personal problem - poor time/resource allocation - not allocating a proper amount of time/energy to work vs. personal projects.
However, I can say, doing a full time, involved job and giving it all my attention tends to use up all the cycles. Is that true for other people too?
One thing I've been doing for the last 2ish years is having side projects that are really far removed from my work. So for example a lot of my work is infrastructure automation and related problems, so I've been doing some side projects learning basic electronics and hacking on microcontrollers. Figuring out why my I'm getting weird readings on a temperature sensor is a great break from figuring out why my load balancer didn't do the right thing.
Just connecting the microcontroller and turning on a LED light is satisfying sometimes. Right now I'm in that cycle where I hesitate to look at screens after work.
> I'm just boggled at how many people appear to find it unimaginable and unrelatable that a technologist likes technology enough to mess with it for fun, even after work.
I do get their point though, they feel bad because they are not one of those. But that's just the way things are. There aren't many people who got into tech because they REALLY like it. Not because it's a "good" job or because it's the lesser evil.
And by that I don't mean the people who only code at work or learned about tech later in life are bad developers, not at all. Nevertheless, they are the vast majority and they are quite different than the passionate young kid who codes for shits and giggles. It doesn't help than they are socially pressured to be like that. They end up hating it. Like when you have a brother/sister that is better than you at something and your parents always say "WHY CANT YOU BE LIKE YOUR BROTHER/SISTER".
I think that was kind of the beginning of the end for the golden era.
There's a point where it's not healthy. It'll catch up with you and there's a danger you'll find yourself not having the enthusiasm to do your hobby projects and also your real job.
Yeah, I program at work, but the tasks I get at a software job don't scratch the itch that got me into tech in the first place. Just like how most workers in "creative" fields don't get paid to do the interesting things that first attracted them. They're stuck using their arts degrees to write marketing copy instead of their dream novel, or they became a civil engineer to design inspiring architecture but their day job is trying to update someone else's vision to include the safety features the designer didn't leave room for.
I get that lots of people get their fill of technology at their job and don't want to see a screen when they get home. Live the life that makes you happy. I'm just boggled at how many people appear to find it unimaginable and unrelatable that a technologist likes technology enough to mess with it for fun, even after work.