4 ms·

Subcontract my work out legal and ethical?

I have two main clients that give me enough work to keep me busy year round (50/hrs a week). There is no defined date, and looks like there is tonnes of work for years to come. Is it legal and ethical for me to sub-contract out my work to other devs? I have a junior dev friend looking to break into the market (he's better than me at dev, I work as a senior). I imagine that if I told the companies I contract for about it, then they might not like it, but I think I'm not under any legal obligations to do so? As long as the work gets done under satisfactory terms then I think it should be ok.

PythonDeveloper 10y ago
As long as (a) your contract doesn't state that you are the sole developer and (b) any agreement you have with clients ensures NDA continuity with sub-contractors, there shouldn't be an issue. You'll want to have (in ANY case) a General Liability and Errors and Omissions insurance policy in case your subs mess up and you don't catch it, resulting in a lawsuit. There may be other legal needs which you should discuss with a licensed attorney, of which I am not one. You'll want to proof all the work and make sure the subs don't put identifying information in the code, and you'll want to scrub all emails to ensure that subs don't communicate with clients. It's a well known issue since it's the only way for software development companies to grow, but you need to take the necessary precautions to protect yourself and your company. Oh yes, and make sure your subs don't have any claim to the work they're doing for you, and that they can't use it in any other product. Your clients may get hacked if they see their custom code show up in an open source project.
aurizon 10y ago
There is always the risk of a slave revolution - I assume your friend will not get all the money and you live on the markup - Marx was right... So in any situatation like this, where the worker will almost certainly get to know the company name, there is the inevitable risk of that person wanting it all. That said, hiring a worker to share the work, with you on the complex stuff and he learning is amenable to various wage divisions. Watch out for laws on workers compensation and employee tax/pension deductions etc
- freelancerdever 10y ago
  It's not possible to split off all 50hrs and I just sit back and collect cheques, because I've been working with these companies for years now and I understand their business and what they want. I would be subcontracting out small tasks, like various bug fixes I'm stuck on, refactoring, changes to external libraries we use etc. The core of the work I would be doing myself. In terms of pay, he's working elance type sites for minimal pay, so I'd be doing him a favor.

PythonDeveloper 10y ago

As long as (a) your contract doesn't state that you are the sole developer and (b) any agreement you have with clients ensures NDA continuity with sub-contractors, there shouldn't be an issue. You'll want to have (in ANY case) a General Liability and Errors and Omissions insurance policy in case your subs mess up and you don't catch it, resulting in a lawsuit. There may be other legal needs which you should discuss with a licensed attorney, of which I am not one. You'll want to proof all the work and make sure the subs don't put identifying information in the code, and you'll want to scrub all emails to ensure that subs don't communicate with clients. It's a well known issue since it's the only way for software development companies to grow, but you need to take the necessary precautions to protect yourself and your company. Oh yes, and make sure your subs don't have any claim to the work they're doing for you, and that they can't use it in any other product. Your clients may get hacked if they see their custom code show up in an open source project.

aurizon 10y ago

There is always the risk of a slave revolution - I assume your friend will not get all the money and you live on the markup - Marx was right... So in any situatation like this, where the worker will almost certainly get to know the company name, there is the inevitable risk of that person wanting it all. That said, hiring a worker to share the work, with you on the complex stuff and he learning is amenable to various wage divisions. Watch out for laws on workers compensation and employee tax/pension deductions etc

freelancerdever 10y ago
It's not possible to split off all 50hrs and I just sit back and collect cheques, because I've been working with these companies for years now and I understand their business and what they want. I would be subcontracting out small tasks, like various bug fixes I'm stuck on, refactoring, changes to external libraries we use etc. The core of the work I would be doing myself. In terms of pay, he's working elance type sites for minimal pay, so I'd be doing him a favor.