Opportunity cost of side projects when you’re working?
Being a student, I can see why side projects are a great way to build your resume, since they are closer to industry experience than most class projects. Side projects fill up your resume when you lack experience.
However, I’m wondering if they’re more of a distraction when you’re in industry? The time that could’ve been used to work on side projects could instead be used to work on promotion. So wouldn’t the ROI of side projects diminish? This is even more the case in high workload environments like FAANG or high-growth startups, where there’s quite a lot of opportunity for impact and scope. I can see the case for side projects at lower-growth companies where there’s not as much room for growth and you can use side projects to supplement it.
Side projects also seem to have less value the more senior a dev gets. If I were a recruiter and I see a senior person have a section have a side project section, I’d be weirded out since the main signals I’m looking for are business impact. Unless the side project is a startup, the side project section carries little weight on the resume.
The reason I’m asking is because I came across this reel from Primeagen:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/\_lZV76JO3WU
If you are doing projects solely for moving up in your career, wouldn’t you be better off doing more relevant and impactful work at your company?
Discussion
(3 comments)- 23 months agoLead Software Engineer at Vista
It depends on what kind of "side-project" you are talking about:
- A product or service that you will launch and get strangers to use.
- A project simply for working on new technologies and skills.
For the first type of project, unless you're already working with A/B tests (experiments) in a frontend or fullstack role, this can be a great learning experience when it comes to discovery, experimentation and rapid prototyping. The industry is trending towards engineers being more product-focused (google "missionary vs. mercenary engineer").
For the second type of project, there is still value in developing prototypes that build your knowledge and skills, even if they never see the light of day. In my case, I was primarily a backend engineer and I worked on a side-project in React. It started out with a Udemy course, I built out a bunch of features and I had the intention to launch it one day, but I never did. Despite that, it helped me a lot in transitioning from a backend team to a frontend team at Microsoft, as I was able to hit the ground running. I was at a mid-level position (level 62) at the time.
If you're trying to get promoted, your side-projects should actually be centered around helping your product or team. Recently, I created a prototype for an internal tool that solves a business problem of ours. I presented it to my manager a month ago, and now we're actively working on it (albeit a scaled-down version within a short time-frame). A project like this will certainly help build your case for promotion.
I agree with you about not having a side-projects section in your resume after having experience. There's no reason to include that unless you launched it and have customers.- 23 months agoSoftware Engineering InternTaro Community
I realize that everyone has a different definition of a side project. My definition of a side project is that it literally has to be on the side and has no relation to your work whatsoever. The only exception is if you built a side project, messed around with it and realized that it could help with your work. So in my definition, the only point of side projects is to upskill in a particular domain, and that upskilling may have a chance to help accelerate your career. Some examples of side projects by my definition include:
- Rebuilding a database from scratch to understand how database works
- Building a product or service from scratch to understand product development cycles
- Train a neural net to understand state of the art ML
Recently, I created a prototype for an internal tool that solves a business problem of ours.
Why would you call it a side project and not a part of your main line of work? What’s your definition of a side project? If it’s because it’s something you’re doing on the side (and your manager isn’t aware that you have this side project), then why did you not tell your manager?
To me it sounds like you built this prototype with the intention of demoing it to your team, which wouldn’t be a side project by my definition. I would call this expanding scope since you’re going above and beyond what’s expected from you in your job (assuming your manager isn’t aware of this prototype).
I think the main question I’m trying to get at is if I have a weekend to spend and my sole goal is to get promoted, should I be spending my time doing side projects (by my definition) or focusing on work-related projects?
- 23 months agoLead Software Engineer at Vista
I called it a side-project because it started out as something I was working on in my own personal time. I did tell my manager I was working on it and showed him progress from beginning until the end. After he approved, he told me to create a document explaining how it works and how it solves our problem, and this document was used to explain to upper management why it needs to be prioritized in the following quarter (and it ultimately was). So it was very possible that we may have had higher priorities and we wouldn't be working on it all. We also threw away that prototype and we're building it from scratch to a production-level as a team.
I believe the root of your question is centered around learning and growth. Working on side-projects is a means to learning and growth, and it's definitely worth investing in that outside of your work. I know plenty of very senior engineers that have been experimenting with LLMs just to get experience with it. Eventually this learning and growth is expected of you the more senior you get.
But would it help if you devoted that same time to work-projects instead? It depends, as not every project may bring about the impact you're seeking (nor will they induce growth/learning). It's best to ask your manager/mentor about specific projects. If you're looking for a rule though, I would definitely prioritize learning and increasing your skills on a weekend.
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