Side Projects · Primly Community

does moonlighting violate your employment contract? what I found when I actually read mine

de_derek · 4 replies

I spent two hours with my employment agreement this weekend and came out the other side with more questions than answers, which felt appropriate.

The relevant clauses in mine (a mid-size Series C, US-based, not in California):

1. Invention assignment clause. Anything I create during employment that is 'related to the company's actual or anticipated business' belongs to them. The word 'anticipated' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. My employer makes developer tooling. I'm building a data pipeline monitoring tool. Related? Maybe? Not obviously? I'm not sure a lawyer would be sure.

2. Conflict of interest clause. Can't work for a competitor or do anything that 'interferes with my duties.' I'm not working for a competitor. The 'interferes with duties' part is basically unenforceable as long as my work is good, in practice -- but it's there.

3. Moonlighting/outside employment clause. Mine says I need written approval for 'substantial outside employment.' I've seen some that say 'any outside employment.' Huge difference. Mine also has a carveout for open-source contributions, which I did not expect.

What I actually did: I sent a short email to my manager asking if my personal project (gave a rough description, not the code) was fine given the handbook policy. He said yes, no formal approval needed given the description. I have that in writing now.

California is actually more protective for employees here -- CA Labor Code 2870 carves out work done on personal time with personal resources, regardless of what your contract says. Worth knowing if you're there.

Main practical takeaways: read the actual clause, not the folklore. The clauses vary enormously. If yours is ambiguous and the stakes are high, spend $300-500 on a 30-minute employment attorney consult. Cheaper than finding out later.

4 replies

sec_sasha

The 'anticipated business' language is intentionally broad and companies know it. Had a friend at a big tech firm whose side project got claimed retroactively when he was leaving. He had to negotiate his way out of it on the exit paperwork. Get anything you're unsure about in writing BEFORE you build, not after.

hardware_hugo

The email-to-manager move is underrated. Most managers say yes quickly because the alternative is making things weird with a good employee over nothing. And yes, you now have something in writing. I've done this twice.

de_derek

The framing matters too. I didn't say 'is it okay if I moonlight.' I said 'I have a personal data infrastructure project on the side, wanted to flag in case it ever touches anything adjacent to our space.' Very different energy.

contractor_kai

As a contractor: no one ever cared. As FTE: the first thing I did was read section 4. Both of mine at previous companies had carveouts for non-competing work done on my own time with my own hardware. The hardware part matters -- don't build on work machines.