I’m pretty sure most contracts only cover what you have created on company equipment/time. It may not even be enforceable if your company tries to go farther. B

I’m pretty sure most contracts only cover what you have created on company equipment/time. It may not even be enforceable if your company tries to go farther. But it is true that you don’t want to deal with a legal battle against a potentially large and hungry corporation during the early stage of a side gig. I’ve also heard that if you are employed in a specific sub field such as eg airline booking software, and you start a side gig doing exactly that, your employer has a stronger case that you used trade secrets or whatever to strong arm themselves into ownership. Even if you don’t really use anything proprietary and your employer doesnt truly have any secret sauce I am a software engineer and I have two monetary side projects, neither of which conflicts with my work and I don’t worry about them. I don’t think my employer wants to own a small food e-commerce business or a mobile game!