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Discussion on: Do I need to do private side projects to be/become a professional web developer?

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Rafael Alberti Cantoni Augusto

I follow the same steps as Cristopher Miles: "In my opinion, if you're working a full time development job you probably do not have a lot of time for side projects. After a day of engaging work, you likely want to eat dinner and spend time with your family or zone out in front of the TV".

I think that two huge points about this are (impressively):

  • Where do you live at;
  • How do you measure success and define "having a good life standard".

For the first point, I believe that there are places across the globe where you probably won't have a good salary (depending on what technology you use and seniority level, but that's another story). So people refer to side projects to raise their income, and have the opportunity use different technologies as a side effect.

For the second one, I think it really comes down to the point where you are satisfied with what you have or not. If you are the kind of person that needs to have the latest phone and the most recent Apple Watch (just an example), probably you will need to have an extra income to pay for these things... 70 inch smart TVs, latest gen iMac, an expensive car, etc. I guess that people refer to side projects to earn more so they can afford these things (if this will eventually work out is, also, another story haha).