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A surprising amount of developers have their own side projects. These should be encouraged by employers because a) most of these projects don't go anywhere and

A surprising amount of developers have their own side projects. These should be encouraged by employers because a) most of these projects don't go anywhere and so the likelihood of you loosing a staff member to their hobbies is low, and b) because employees often explore new technologies and educate themselves when doing these things. It means your employee loves what they do enough to keep doing it in their spare time, and is getting an education which helps their day job and doesn't cost you a cent. But not all employers see the positives in this, so make sure that any clauses about your place of work owning your work produced outside of office hours are removed from contracts, and NEVER do any personal work on company provided computers or using company provided software. You're just setting yourself up for trouble.

dyarosla 10y ago
I mean, these ideas are nice... in theory. But to play devil's advocate: a) Statistics? b) Can an argument not be made that with programming/developing/designing at work AND at home, burnout is more likely? Or that less overall effort will be spent on work related things?
- disordinary 10y ago
  The point of my post was really about playing by the rules and making sure you don't get in any legal problems by using company resources to further your own project, I guess I started on a bit of a tangent though. :) As far as answering your questions, a) I don't have any statistics but I know a lot of people with side projects and they all still have day jobs, so it's very anecdotal. b) You could make that case, but I'd say (once again without evidence to back it up) that if burnout occurs it's going to be the personal project that is cut rather than the job that pays the bills.
eloff 10y ago
Just a heads up, after passing 50 hours of assignments and interviews, I turned down an offer from IBM because they wanted to own my side project. Stay clear of big blue if you like doing side projects, their legal dept is overzealous.
- disordinary 10y ago
  Yeah, I've negotiated out that clause on a few contracts. I think Google is the same, people who are Googlers with opensourced projects that have nothing to do with Google all have them hosted on the Google github account for this reason. I'm not in the US but AFAIK US law (or at least Californian law) states that a company can only own what you do in your personal time if it competes with them, the problem is that for companies the size of IBM and Google that could be most things.
- erikb 10y ago
  That probably applies to all companies that are so big that middle-management people aren't a rare sight. It's not just because they are bad people, but they need simple, reliable systems to keep so many people work in the same directions. Even awesome exceptions are a huge pain to them since each one creates organizational debt.
erikb 10y ago
I wouldn't count (a) as an argument. Let's say 90% of the side projects become something. I would argue in that case you as employer could still profit from allowing it. You could be a first investor as long as it is cheap, or an early bird customer with huge influence on features and look&feel. The employee still learns a lot of things that he can flow into the rest of the team through presentations and lunch break discussions. And last but not least, if a smart new employee sees that input is encouraged he also brigns in more courage to his day job and feels less need to do his own thing.

dyarosla 10y ago

I mean, these ideas are nice... in theory. But to play devil's advocate: a) Statistics? b) Can an argument not be made that with programming/developing/designing at work AND at home, burnout is more likely? Or that less overall effort will be spent on work related things?

disordinary 10y ago
The point of my post was really about playing by the rules and making sure you don't get in any legal problems by using company resources to further your own project, I guess I started on a bit of a tangent though. :) As far as answering your questions, a) I don't have any statistics but I know a lot of people with side projects and they all still have day jobs, so it's very anecdotal. b) You could make that case, but I'd say (once again without evidence to back it up) that if burnout occurs it's going to be the personal project that is cut rather than the job that pays the bills.

eloff 10y ago

Just a heads up, after passing 50 hours of assignments and interviews, I turned down an offer from IBM because they wanted to own my side project. Stay clear of big blue if you like doing side projects, their legal dept is overzealous.

disordinary 10y ago
Yeah, I've negotiated out that clause on a few contracts. I think Google is the same, people who are Googlers with opensourced projects that have nothing to do with Google all have them hosted on the Google github account for this reason. I'm not in the US but AFAIK US law (or at least Californian law) states that a company can only own what you do in your personal time if it competes with them, the problem is that for companies the size of IBM and Google that could be most things.
erikb 10y ago
That probably applies to all companies that are so big that middle-management people aren't a rare sight. It's not just because they are bad people, but they need simple, reliable systems to keep so many people work in the same directions. Even awesome exceptions are a huge pain to them since each one creates organizational debt.

erikb 10y ago

I wouldn't count (a) as an argument. Let's say 90% of the side projects become something. I would argue in that case you as employer could still profit from allowing it. You could be a first investor as long as it is cheap, or an early bird customer with huge influence on features and look&feel. The employee still learns a lot of things that he can flow into the rest of the team through presentations and lunch break discussions. And last but not least, if a smart new employee sees that input is encouraged he also brigns in more courage to his day job and feels less need to do his own thing.