If your definition of "frontend developer" is designer, then sure. Otherwise for any dev with experience, this is a dumb expectation. Part of a dev's job is to use the right tool for the job, and there's no sense in wasting time reinventing the wheel.
(I say this as someone who used to overengineer my own personal websites with the hottest tech stack of the week, but am now in the process of throwing it all away for a simple WordPress site.)
Otherwise for any dev with experience, this is a dumb expectation.
A good website that demonstrates some ability to write frontend code well is a shortcut to demonstrating that you're good at what I want to employ you to do. It's a showcase of your skills, just as a graphic designer would have a Dribbble portfolio or a backend dev would have a few repos on Github. I'm not suggesting you can't get hired without a nice site, but if I get your resume you're much more likely to get a call for an interview if you do.
No, the equivalent here would be to expect back-end devs to build their own blog applications. What a waste of time. I did that when I was younger and it was only a distraction from actually writing and building things that mattered.
I built my own blog in Elixir/Phoenix when I was looking for a job as a junior dev, and at that time it indicated to employers that I can learn a new language on my own, that I understand basic web dev, etc. Now that I'm more on the hiring side of the equation I would still be impressed if a fresh CS or bootcamp grad built a blog (or any other simple project) in a newer stack that doesn't yet have hand-holding tutorials.
However, outside of junior level positions, I don't think there's much you can glean from whether somebody has done trivial side projects or not. Obviously an ambitious side project is worth a lot, but the bar for building one is really high and there are so many great devs who can't reasonably make the time outside of work to do that.
No one is forcing you to do any of this stuff. If you can find a job you like without doing it then that's awesome, but plenty of people can't. I'm suggesting a way that people can avoid being filtered out based on their resume because, whether you like it or not, wanting a candidate to demonstrate that they can code reasonably well before the interview stage is quite common.
I think people get a bit too hung up on the way FAANG-size corporations do hiring, with code tests, full time hiring managers, etc. That's only a fraction of the software industry, and if you're applying to somewhere smaller having a public portfolio is useful.
Sure, but this thread is about being judged by the thing that basically links to your portfolio (Github) or contains your demonstration of knowledge (like blog posts) instead of judging those those things directly. The OP dismisses the latter in favor of the former, and that's what I meant was a waste of time.
That you should build something if you don't have anything to show off at all is a completely different point -- and that doesn't seem to be your point when I reread your previous comment? At which point, I'd recommend building something more interesting than a blog unless you're a beginner, and I'd avoid mixing your writing with your attempt to build your first demo project. But this thread isn't about beginner advice.
Personally I place more weight on their professional experience / portfolio and don't feel that having a pretty or flashy site is a good predictor of a developer's ability, especially when most devs are using templates anyways. But yea, all else equal a nicer site is an advantage even if a minimal one at that, not going to disagree with you there.
While it's nice for someone to have a public portfolio of URLs they've worked on you can't really rely on that so much now. 15 years ago sure, everyone made websites so you just asked to see what site's the candidate had built. Over the past 10 years I've found it increasingly common that developers working with front end tech are building things they can't show off - SaaS, internal apps, etc. That's one of the reasons I like to see a personal site or a side project - often that's the only publicly visible code they have.
Ok sure, if you have nothing to show off and no publicly visible code, then sure a nice site might help. My last two companies I worked at have publicly visible websites that I worked on that I can point to, so I don't see why that would matter in my case.
(I say this as someone who used to overengineer my own personal websites with the hottest tech stack of the week, but am now in the process of throwing it all away for a simple WordPress site.)