>>If you think I should be spending all my free time coding after putting in more than 40 hours of coding at work, then you have no understanding of work-life balance.
Well no one is saying that, but nice strawman.
From what I see, people are saying that. That's not a strawman at all. You want people who put in 45-70 hours of professional time per week writing software code to then go home and write more software code in their free time. There's only 168 hours in a week. 56 of that should be used for sleeping. I spend 7 hours a week driving to/from work. I spend about 10 hours a week eating. I spend 3 hours a week in the shower and getting dressed. So, after work that leaves me with what, 47-22 hours for everything else. My daughter and wife easily take up the majority of that time. That leaves me with little time for say watching a movie, playing a game, or simply vegging out. You'd like me to spend that writing even more code than I already put out? Let me reiterate: you have no concept of work-life balance. And again, that's not a strawman.
The point is not that someone should spend all their time coding after work, the point is they should, at some point have demonstrated that they do like programming/design/whatever enough to do something on their own time. That might be 10 years ago in college, that might be a couple hours every month on something trivial.. It doesn't matter, the point is when someone is openly hostile to the very concept of programming after work, they are likely not the best candidate when you're hiring.
Fine. I programmed in my free time back when I had enormous amounts of free time in elementary, junior high, and high school. I've only sporadically done that during and after college. Since I've had my daughter, I haven't done any programming in my free time. And if you ask me about that, then I will be hostile to the mere concept of it.
You think I'm a bad candidate because of that? If not, then fine. Go bugger off. If so, then we have issues.
Anyone with a significant amount of time in software engineering is going to go get a life at some point. Your senior engineers, your architects, your people with 20 years of experience aren't going to be doing code 24/7. If you just hire people who code 24/7, then you're only going to get the young and inexperienced. Maybe that's what you like. But, those aren't going to be the people who help you successfully finish your projects.
Passion is great. That's what makes companies of all types hire inexperienced people. However, passion is no substitute for experience and the ability to consistently produce high-performance, bug-free, maintainable code that meets business needs on time and under budget. With experience comes people with real lives, who don't like coding 24/7.