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Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

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Re: Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

#51

Post by williamdclt »

DecoPerson wrote: post #37
williamdclt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the company say yes? Seems to me they’d say “no, but that’s a good idea we’re going to have you do that as part of your employment”

If it’s outside your job description, you’re not obliged to do anything. You’re not a slave. You can say no to your boss. You’re on equal footing (though your boss generally has more power/wealth so can bully/manipulate you). It’s up to your boss as to what they do when you say no. If you’re a good employee when it comes to your usual responsibilities, then they’ll keep you. If your boss tells you to write software a…

Yeah, OP being a SWE I don’t think many people would be convinced by “it’s not in their job description”!

They could make that into a high-visibility project showing leadership blahblah, making it into a promotion/raise opportunity rather than a $ opportunity

Re: Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

#52

Post by worthless-trash »

chrismorgan wrote: post #46
worthless-trash wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not completely wrong, I have seen it in two of my Australian employment contracts.

Reread the comment I was responding to. It’s about what the default is.

I stand by my statement.

Re: Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

#53

Post by jxjnskkzxxhx »

mattmanser wrote: post #12
GianFabien wrote: post #9

IANAL either. I believe that UK law would be similar to that in Australia. To the best of my understanding, as an employee the IP of all work you produce is owned by the company. Even as a contractor you need rather specific contracts if your work for hire is not to be owned by the client. My first reaction is to advise you to let the idea go. The most likely outcome is that you will do a huge amount of work and then…

You're wrong. In the UK, if you develop it in your free time it's yours, as long as you don't use company equipment. However! It can be a clause in your contract to say sompany owns IP developed in free time, and is enforceable. Sometime there's often an extra clause saying unless an exemption is approved by the board (I assume to stop hirers informally saying 'oh don't worry about that', being legally valid). I have…

> In the UK, if you develop it in your free time it's yours, as long as you don't use company equipment.

I'm in the UK. My contract specifically says that anything I produce while employed for the company, even in my free time, is owned by the company. So is your claim that the contract is illegal/unenforceable?

Re: Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

#54

Post by ukoki »

jxjnskkzxxhx wrote: post #53
mattmanser wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong. In the UK, if you develop it in your free time it's yours, as long as you don't use company equipment. However! It can be a clause in your contract to say sompany owns IP developed in free time, and is enforceable. Sometime there's often an extra clause saying unless an exemption is approved by the board (I assume to stop hirers informally saying 'oh don't worry about that', being legally valid). I have…

> In the UK, if you develop it in your free time it's yours, as long as you don't use company equipment. I'm in the UK. My contract specifically says that anything I produce while employed for the company, even in my free time, is owned by the company. So is your claim that the contract is illegal/unenforceable?

Your contract is legal and enforceable. The parent commenter is just saying that there's no _automatic_ right to work you do in your free time (ie it has to be specifically mentioned in the contract). You could try and negotiate that clause out of your contract though.

Re: Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

#55

Post by eps »

If I were your employer, I would've been really irked if you tried to pull this off.

The only option here is to offer your help with this during your working hours and have yourself reassigned to this basically. Trying to make $ on this will likely do more damage than it would do good.

Re: Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

#56

Post by Flemlo »

I'm not allowed to do that at all.

I'm also lost on why you think this will make bank.

If it's a basic frontend and no one in your company cares, no one else will.

And you will run into 'conflict of interest ' very fast.

An 'idea' is not worth anything.

If it affects your daily work I would expect you to just do your job which might include making a frontend to make your job easier in company time. After all the company pays you for your expertise. If I would be your boss, I might even be offended by this way of thinking tbh

Re: Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

#57

Post by mpeg »

So, I know people that have done exactly this in the UK, but they did it anonymously. Might be unethical but depending on your employer you can YOLO it. Basically you have a close friend set up a LTD which takes a day, they are listed as sole director. You then draft up a contract agreement with your friends company.

After that you’re ready to champion the sale internally, you pitch it as something a friend has set up that might help with X project. Your friend is the main point of contact and gets to keep a % margin through the LTD

Of course I would not bother with this unless it’s 6 figures a year, I know a guy that bootstrapped his startup this way when he was working for a large co

Re: Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

#58

Post by nivertech »

Flemlo wrote: post #56

I'm not allowed to do that at all. I'm also lost on why you think this will make bank. If it's a basic frontend and no one in your company cares, no one else will. And you will run into 'conflict of interest ' very fast. An 'idea' is not worth anything. If it affects your daily work I would expect you to just do your job which might include making a frontend to make your job easier in company time. After all the comp…

If anything this thread shows how work ethics have changed in the last decade

Some people don't realize that being an employee means having a basic incentives alignment with your employer. No one demands complete unconditional loyalty, but there should be some unwritten codes (regardless of what's written in your contract)

People who value their freedom should not be salaried employees. Start yr own business & do whatever u want. With caveats, in some jurisdictions employees are much better protected by law than businesses or self-employed consultants/contractors, & companies often ask the latter to sign more draconian contracts, NDAs, and non-competes (viewing them as potential competitors). U can always negotiate, but there are less scurpolous businesses & consultants who will sign any contract just to get the project/deal, & that's lowers the bar for everyone

Re: Ask HN: Selling software to company I work for as an employee

#59

Post by tpoacher »

noduerme wrote: post #33
Hobadee wrote: post #15

Since you already work as an automation engineer, it might be a bit harder since programming is probably part of your job, but this is what I did at a previous company: I wrote up a contract basically saying that since programming large programs was outside the scope of my normal work, any such programs I wrote would not be considered "works for hire" (a legal term in the US) and not property of the company, but inst…

Mentioning that you negotiated to keep your code from falling under "works for hire" does a lot of heavy lifting in this (very well packed) example. I recommend that the OP dig into what "works for hire" means in the US to get a sense of what they should negotiate [to avoid]. It can definitely be a win/win for the company as well as for an enterprising engineer. The general idea is simply to go outside the scope of y…

Naive question but, what's stopping the company from just saying "no, and actually it's now your job to also do this" ?
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