Tech interviews expect esoteric minutia to be on the top of your mind and easily recallable. You also must be able to talk about past projects in great detail as if you worked on them yesterday.
If you take more than a few months off interviews become insanely hard.
I've taken over a year off now than once and haven't found this to be true. Things generally change less than it feels like, and you can get caught up on any new coding practices pretty quickly.
That’s why interview prep is so important. You need to sit down and remember things you did in previous roles and how they apply in the role you’re applying for.
Your competition for the best jobs do this. If you don’t, that’s up to you, but you’re asking for a five or six figure annual commit to you, it’s reasonable that in an hour or two you can talk about what you have done in the past in enough detail an interviewer can see how that experience applies in the new role.
If you take more than a few months off interviews become insanely hard.