[pdovy]

Personally I will always look through side projects or a GitHub if it's on a candidates resume. It's another source of signal and can be really valuable especially if there is code to look through.

That said as the role gets more senior the value of the signal goes down IMO. Side projects are typically done solo, and are small-ish in scope. Whereas a key function of a good senior IC, at least in my opinion, is to be a force multiplier more than a heads-down coder.