A friend got fired from Coinbase for his side project he worked on for 5 years

Hi HN, a friend submitted this.

Here's the short version:

I was recently fired from my SWE job at Coinbase. When I joined, I fully disclosed a side project I'd been building for 5 years, an algorithmic trading platform called NexusTrade. It was on my resume, discussed in interviews, and disclosed in writing before my start date. HR cleared it.

Months later, Coinbase launched their own AI advisory product (Coinbase Advisor). Their compliance team then retroactively declared my solo project a "material competitor" and gave me 30 days to shut it down, sell it, or resign. When I asked for severance instead, since they were effectively forcing me out over something I disclosed on day zero, I was immediately suspended for "conduct concerns" and fired a week later.

On the technical side: NexusTrade is a MERN stack with a Rust backtesting engine. It has an AI agent (ReAct framework) that can build, backtest, and optimize trading strategies through natural language. Supports stocks, ETFs, crypto, and multi-leg options.

I'm mostly interested in hearing from anyone who's navigated a similar IP/compliance situation as a developer with a side project. What did you do? Happy to answer any questions.

tl;dr Austin (posting with his permission) is a CMU grad, who just got fired from Coinbase for having to choose between abandoning a side project he worked on for 5 years (And they knew about when hiring him) because they were afraid he'll "compete" with them. Not for performance, not for any other reason, just forced him to abandon things he worked on on his personal time, using his personal equipment, after agreeing to it when he was first hired. This is not ok.