Totally agree. Passion is the key ingredient. For me, as a self-proclaimed self-taught dev, I learned the most on side projects because my main jobs didn't always offered job training or clear paths towards advancement or eventually the product went into maintenance mode and became boring. Maybe it's splitting hairs, but I still consider that on the job experience, even if it wasn't paid many times, and it gave me a deeper understanding of problem solving in addition to programming chops than tutorials or portfolio projects or bootcamps could provide.