Do software developers sacrifice their free time to improve their technical skills via learning and side projects after job?

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The good ones do, but they don’t see it as a sacrifice. Just as a fun way to spend time. When I was a kid I used to grab programming books off the shelf at the school library and type the programs into a school computer. My mom encouraged my hobby by getting me a programmable graphing calculator that I was inseperable with for a good year. When we got a computer of our own I spent as much time trying to get the games working as I did actually playing the games.

As an adult I used to pick up technologies and code in my spare time. I used to do it because I needed the skills to do my job better. Now I just do it for fun. I keep a strict work from personal life separation nowadays, but that wasn’t always the case. Now, I don’t need to keep learning on my off time, I can get everything I need and learn on the job. But it took me years to get to that level.