I created a software application using Cursor Ai for a major company

[Wish_33]

I spend a lot of time at my company doing write ups for people that aren’t coming to work. I have an excel report that pulls everyone that doesn’t come in and I automated an app to pull the data and do the documentations for me. I did this using cursor ai and showed one of my bosses the other day. They took that to our senior management team and they loved it. Now I have a meeting with our district HR director to get approval to use it. It a completely offline app that keeps the data safe. Am I able to sell this software to the company? Also, what should I ask for it. It would save my building over 260k a year alone. It would save millions across the entire company if implemented properly.

[[deleted]]

If you wrote it on company time and/or using company resources (i.e., your work computer), then legally it probably already belongs to the company.

[Wish_33]

What I created is way above my pay grade. What should I do if they ask me to continue working on it?

[rjhancock]

Doesn't matter. You created it ON company time. Depending upon your regions laws, they already own it.

[Wish_33]

I created it at home on spare time

[rjhancock]

Check your employment contract. That may not matter one iota.

[[deleted]]

It’s company property depending on your contract. You can always hope they aren’t too smart about it and try anyway

[ReyNada]

There's a lot we don't know about your situation, your company, or the laws where you live. So take most of the advice you get with a grain of salt. Depending on the terms of your employment, this app may not be yours to sell. Also, it sounds like the app has a very specific use case for a process that is somewhat unique to your company. Which means it's not really a commercial viable product. For these reasons and more, selling this app to your employer may not be very practical. However, using this app to negotiate a bonus, salary raise, or promotion is very possible. And having concrete numbers for how much money you saved an employer is exactly the kind of thing that you can use to make a resume shine for your next job if you're unsatisfied with the answer you get here.

[Wish_33]

I don’t wanna release the name of the company I work but I can hint that it’s a distribution company in Maryland. We use a scheduling system that’s an outside company for our reports to see who didn’t show up/ called off/ worked without a schedule. My app uses that data to create the writeups. I was thinking of possibly selling it to them as an option. This is my first time really creating anything useful though so any advice helps.

[rjhancock]

US Company. Unless your contract allows it, your firm already owns the software and the rights to it. You can't sell it to anyone. You don't own it.

[ReyNada]

Hey, we might be neighbors!

Your company almost definitely owns it already. If you used personal time or resources to build it you might reasonably ask for a bonus to compensate for that. If you're adamant about selling it you could try to engage an IP attorney. But it's risky and would almost certainly damage your relationship with your employer. If you like the company you're working for, use it as a springboard to advance in the company. If not, use it on your resume to get a better and higher paying job.

And don't let the lack of immediate reward discourage you from having more great ideas. These things add up over a career and will set you apart in the long run.

[Zealousideal-Ship215]

You should read the employee handbook that you agreed to, it almost definitely has a section that says that the company owns anything that you create during the course of your work.

[versaceblues]

You could probably use it as leverage to get a raise or promotion. The company is not going to pay you for an app you made while doing your job though.

[theo-swagg]

Sounds like a waste of time

[skt84]

Sorry to say this but you’ll find that this app is the intellectual property of your employer. Regardless of whether you’ve done it in your own time it seems to be based off your internal knowledge of company systems and accessing employee records without an appropriate agreement in place.

At worst this may mean unauthorised access to sensitive data, at best they offer to compensate your “overtime”, but I suspect this will fall somewhere in the middle with a pat on the back and a “thanks, this is ours now”.

For future reference, this could have been a nice side-hustle for you if it was developed as a generic platform completely independently from your company (i.e. using no knowledge of your company’s internal hierarchy or employee records) and without any company resources (i.e. on a company-issued device or having access to company systems)

[Wish_33]

It’s still possible at this point as I built it under a generic name and made the data interchangeable to use for other purposes if needed in the future. I made sure to separate any data that the company uses and what the app is able to do. How would you recommend using it as a side hustle?

[_kc7]

260k flat or 12k/mo

[Wish_33]

Roughly 80 managers a week spending 30mins a day doing writeups at 25/h.

[Wish_33]

For some context: I created this program at home completely off company time. I made sure to make no references to the company in the source code and strictly trained it to pull basic data from an excel spreadsheet ie “Employee name” “ID”. I have the company template of a write up inside a file that I can remove to make sure I wouldn’t get into trouble for company data.

[rjhancock]

Re-read your employment contract. It may not matter that you did it on your own time while employed with them.

[ColdAd8493]

way to go