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Comment by vunderba | Hacker News Reader

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vunderba·

Won't help you now OP, but I've always negotiated an IP carve-out for any product(s) that I develop that:

A. Are developed with my own hardware

B. Are developed outside of hours of employment

C. Are not designed to compete with existing company products

Every place I've worked with was amenable to these terms, but I always make sure to get it IN WRITING.

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> Every place I've worked with was amenable to these terms

What is the largest company you've successfully gotten to agree to these terms?

It's got to be easiee for a larger company to agree to. What would you be inspired to make that doesn't compete with an existing product if you work at big tech? It feels like they have products in all spaces.

Large companies tend to have very conservative legal departments, and be less supportive of exceptions and more willing to just not hire someone who has requirements outside their perceived norm. The question would be whether the company has ever established an exception path, typically by having a high-level hiring manager insist and running it up the chain.

I knew about this ahead of time. I was kinda going through it mentally at the time and I didn't have the energy to negotiate.

I had that in my contract when I started in the games industry, it was made very clear to me that if I don't like the terms there are 500 other juniors willing to take my spot. Not excusing it, I'm just saying that sometimes you're not in a position to negotiate this if you really want the job(and I really wanted the job at the time, we can argue whether that was the right thing to do or not but the fact remains).

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