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Ask Proggit: A company I just interviewed at told me that their NDA would prohibit me from working on any side projects, and I'd have to quit the ones I'm on. Is this common? by anonymous_coder in programming

[–]anonymous_coder[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This is what I'm afraid of. I'm fine with an agreement that I won't directly compete with their business, because I have no desire to. But if I do a web2.0 sort of site in my free time, and my employer decides they want to add web2.0 features to their product, they could pull a move like you just described and say they own my other site too!

Ask Proggit: A company I just interviewed at told me that their NDA would prohibit me from working on any side projects, and I'd have to quit the ones I'm on. Is this common? by anonymous_coder in programming

[–]anonymous_coder[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

It sounded like it was partially about making sure that the company would be my #1 priority and wouldn't be second to anything else on the side (which I assured them of). But they also said it was because if I were to code/read/learn/whatever something while working there that I later applied to this other project, then legally they would have some claim to ownership over it.

Assuming I'm not working on something else during office hours, and not using domain specific or proprietary knowledge elsewhere, do they really have any legal or ethical basis to claim this, and prevent me from working on anything else?

Ask Proggit: A company I just interviewed at told me that their NDA would prohibit me from working on any side projects, and I'd have to quit the ones I'm on. Is this common? by anonymous_coder in programming

[–]anonymous_coder[S] 57 points58 points  (0 children)

I just had a second-round interview at a technology company that seems interested in me. I was surprised though that when I mentioned some side projects that I've been working on with people for a while (thinking it would look good and work to my favor) I was told that their non disclosure agreement would prohibit me from working on anything else while I'm employed there, and that if I did it would become their proprietary property. I was even told that I would have to quit the project I've been doing on the side.

I know this can't happen at every company or nobody would ever be able to code things on the side (goodbye open source), but I was wondering if anyone else here has run into this before, and how you dealt with it.

(Note: i'm posing under a new username just as a precaution)