Salaried american software developer here. While some large companies have moonlighting carve outs, by and large the rights to any of your work done outside working hours is at the employer’s discretion.
(I call out salaried because I think those clauses can vary depending on the structure of your employment)
My interpretation is probably distorted by having worked at big companies that have arms in basically every part of software development so there is no side project programming that is “out of scope” there.
But working at a company with a narrower focus would let you moonlight more freely.
Sadly, it’s not uncommon from what I understand.
Canadian software developer here,
It’s really not. Contracts like that in Canada and US haven’t been used widely in a long time.
Oh? That’s great to hear. That means I’m out of date on that. I have a friend who experienced this once.
Salaried american software developer here. While some large companies have moonlighting carve outs, by and large the rights to any of your work done outside working hours is at the employer’s discretion.
(I call out salaried because I think those clauses can vary depending on the structure of your employment)
My understanding is clauses that own work made outside of work (hours, resources, nonncompeteing scope, ect…) is not enforceable.
But if you do anything related to the company, then it’s theirs.
Ah, that sounds correct to me.
My interpretation is probably distorted by having worked at big companies that have arms in basically every part of software development so there is no side project programming that is “out of scope” there.
But working at a company with a narrower focus would let you moonlight more freely.