The memes are out there for a reason 😂

It’s pretty common for software engineers to invest a significant amount of their time into personal coding projects…well, at least into starting them.

These projects can be a lot of fun, they can also be very rewarding. They can lead to learning a new language, or new tooling that you can share with your colleagues, or even coming up with a super useful open source library that can be published to a package repository like npm or Nuget.

On the other hand, as the memes sometimes point out, a lot of these projects end up abandoned and unfinished.

…but why do they get abandoned?

Probably because a better “project” comes along, or you’re too tired, or whatever… And that’s ok 👍

It is very important for engineers to try things, to experiment, to just write code without caring about code reviews or coding standards. This an essential part of the learning process.

One thing I do not like about personal projects is how they are used as a criteria for hiring software engineers. It’s not easy to find the time (or the energy) to code in your free time, especially as you get older.

Sure, it’s easy to assume that if you invest time on such projects, you are more knowledgeable and more passionate about software engineering than others who don’t (or can’t)…however, it’s just as important to find the time to recharge after the work day and that should be okay.

There are also other ways to learn without doing hands-on coding…books are a great source of information and they are just as valuable when it comes to learning more about software development.

Coding at home should be for fun and that’s how it should remain.