Do my employers own my side project?
I started working on a job board application about 6 months ago before starting my current job. My current job is an education tech start up which works to get young people apprenticeships.
It works on a different business model in that my employers get paid from a government levy, they target 16-25 year olds for apprenticeship opportunities while my job board is something like Remoteok.io - you post a dev job and you pay money per listing.
My manager pulled me aside the other day upon hearing a conversation I had with a friend about my side project and told me that even though I have a clause in my contract that protects my IPs it doesn't count if the idea is in competition with my work and that even if I launch after leaving my employers could claim I worked on it while working for them.
I haven't worked on it using their equipment or their time, I've only worked on it in my own time using none of my employer resources - I also started development of my side project 3 months before joining.
IANAL, but since your side project subject matter might be brushing up against your day job subject matter, you might want to really closely look at that part of your employment agreement and maybe have an attorney friend look at it. The spirit of what you are doing is well and good, like "I started working on side project before starting current job" etc, but it's easy to get snagged up in the legal technicalities of agreements that you put your signature on (NDAs, employment etc). Have an attorney look at it if at all possible.
Guess I'll try, thanks
Regardless of the specific details of the contract, do you have the time or money to defend yourself legally if they did sue you?
Also, why were you talking about your project at work?
It was more I was chatting with a friend at work about side projects and I was within earshot
Was the "clause in my contract that protects my IPs" something you requested because of your side project or something that was in the contract by default?
I requested it to be added myself when I saw a far stricter clause in place
I do the same. Most of the places I've worked have had very generic clauses in them which pretty much read "whatever you do, at any time, on company or personal equipment, even at 2am in Maui, are the property of the company". I always get this changed and make sure my employer knows the side projects I'm working on to ensure there is no conflict of interest (this is usually part of the interview conversation anyway) and I wouldn't accept an offer which stops me from working on my side projects.
Discouraging employees to work on side projects seems a weird stance. So much R&D is done on side projects (and not at the employers' expense) so why would any employer not want to benefit from that. My personal development on side projects has had so much impacted the work I do in my 9-5 job, from learning new frameworks, new technologies, SEO, testing out ideas for promoting your site, how to perform competitor analysis etc, it all helps the employer in the long run.
I'd also be taking a close look at the culture. Being brought aside to have that conversation would raise some red flags for me, especially if they were aware of the project before taking you on (discussed at interview, listed as a project on your CV etc)
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
Yeah I know now to keep my mouth shut when talking about side projects..
This comment was deleted 4 years ago