I write for myself. I don't track, I don't care if people read my blog.
I do mention my blog on my resume together with code repositories. It is some kind of portfolio, and it is a good learning experience for me.
I don't think that it is worth "building a brand", unless you want to specialize in building brands. It's not like someone at Google will ever read your blog and offer you a job; if you want to work at Google, learn how to pass their interview process. If you want to be visible on social media, probably you need to follow a ton of people, engage with them, produce a lot of content and the kind of content that people like or repost. This has nothing to do with a personal blog, though.
Another thing is that if you find it worth blogging about, it's probably niche in the first place. If it's common knowledge, it's probably already on Wikipedia, or StackOverflow, or now some LLM (and if you wait long enough, your blog will be part of the LLM, whether you want it or not).
I see it like FOSS: if you do it with the hope that many people will use it, then I think it's a bad idea. Because you work for free and people will never be happy. If you do it for yourself, it's great!
> It's not like someone at Google will ever read your blog and offer you a job; if you want to work at Google, learn how to pass their interview process.
My blog literally had that effect from Google, many years ago -- although obviously I still had to go through the interview process. And my blog definitely helped me land my past and current jobs as recently as 2 years ago.
> although obviously I still had to go through the interview process
So they did not exactly offer you a job, did they? Say you had applied spontaneously without this first contact, would it have been different?
I have had multiple people tell me that they got "recruited" by a FAANG. And when I ask details, what happened is more that some recruiter "convinced" them to apply and go through the interview process. So they did not really get offered a job: they applied and went through the process. I get a ton of messages on LinkedIn from all sorts of recruiters...
> And my blog definitely helped me land my past and current jobs
Was it because the companies discovered you through your blog? Or did you apply and put your blog on your resume as a portfolio?
My point is: I think that a blog is part of your portfolio, and I agree it may help when applying for a job. But I don't believe in "building a personal brand" such that a company magically offers you a job.