
Ask HN: Are you working paid part-time while still having a full-time job? - zippy786
I am wondering how many of you work part-time 10-20 hr freelancing or building other&#x27;s MVP while still having a full-time job. Did you have to sign any agreement to the full-time employer for this ?
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carsongross
I would worry about this about as much as your employer worries about ensuring
they have a well thought out career development plan for you that includes a
fully funded pension.

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ajeet_dhaliwal
Agreed wholeheartedly.

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RickS
I am not currently doing this, but have in the past. What follows is only my
experience (full time roles in bay area startups with very standard contracts)

There are two points of overlap between your employer and your side business
to be mindful of.

1) time and resources.

Generally speaking, your employer owns all IP you develop at work, or using
work resources. In practice, I've never seen an employer be a dick about this,
but you should still be exceedingly careful. It's really easy to be 100% free
and clear on this one. Just don't ever do side project work (to include
answering emails, etc) on work machines or on premises at work.

2) intellectually property.

This one's trickier. The agreement that matters most you already signed, if
your employer uses one. It's basically a list of stuff you've already invented
or have as a side project, and it exists specifically as a papertrail. eg: I
work on finance software interfaces as my full time job, and have also done
work on this for myself on the side. This agreement says "I created product X,
which does Y with method Z" as part of the employment agreement, so that they
can't later claim that I only came up with Y and Z because of my employer's
training or resources, thus entitling employer to the project.

How careful you need to be here depends on the thematic proximity of your
employer and your side project. If you work for dropbox and your side project
is flappy bird, you're probably fine. If you work for adobe and your side
project is an alternative to photoshop, do a lot of homework and consider
talking to a lawyer.

TL;DR: don't use employer time or resources, do use common sense.

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kasey_junk
Most employment agreements I've signed have at least a notification clause, if
not an approval one.

Those may be illegal in your jurisdiction but in most places in the US they
arent.

You should verify this before starting to look for part time work.

Respectfully, I'd argue that building your own skill set or business is going
to be exponentially more valuable use for those hours anyway, unless you
really need the cash.

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phamilton
I ran a remote team doing part time work for about a year and a half while
having a full time job. For the part time work, I acted as PM and somewhat of
a TLM. I learned a ton about managing people and customers. I shut it down
when I felt I wasn't learning as much (and learned a lot about how not to drop
customers...). It was stressful and the incremental money was only $20k-30k/yr
or so. Looking back it was definitely the exposure to new roles that was the
main value.

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Tharkun
What I do on my own time is none of my employer's business. Mileage and
regulations may vary, of course.

I work about 20hrs a week on various side-gigs. Pretty strict about the
working hours and work not overlapping with whatever my current employer is
doing. It's nice to keep things separate.

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chillydawg
That's usually fine, but if you worked for me doing what my team does and you
were to be constantly tired out because of your side gig, you'd end up on a
path to unemployment unless you committed to the full time job.

Obviously, that only applies if you do actually turn up tired all the time. If
you can pull off the longer hours, rock on!

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bbcbasic
I have a side gig too: raising 2 children. Do you have the same sentiments
about that situation?

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parent5446
Not him, but yes. I know it's blunt, but if having children runs you down to
the point where you are performing very poorly during your full-time job, do
not be surprised if you are asked to take unpaid time off. You are still
getting paid to do an job, and as said above, what happens on your own time is
your own business. Your employer only cares about your work. Does that mean
they won't be sympathetic? Of course not. But there's always a limit.

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jonathanbull
When I built [https://emailoctopus.com](https://emailoctopus.com) I was in a
different full-time role. Unless such a clause is written in my contract, why
should anything I do in my spare time need sign off from an employer?

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NumberCruncher
Looks nice.

~~~
jonathanbull
Cheers!

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mattbgates
Absolutely... when I'm not working, I'm working. I'm working freelance for
several clients as a web designer on the side as well as a full-time web
designer. I also run a few websites that generate some ad revenue.. wish it
was enough to pay some bills, but it does pay for the server they sit on. When
I'm not working on my websites, I'm working on my side projects which don't
generate any money yet, but those side projects are teaching me how to create
subscription-based projects that I can use to start generating recurring
revenue. My goal right now is to make my primary day job my secondary job and
turn my side project(s) into my primary business. I pretty much work until my
brain no longer functions or I can't focus on what I'm doing any longer, then
I know it's time for me to stop what I'm doing and sleep. There are also times
where I need to walk away from projects and simply go for a walk, bike ride,
or do something else to clear my mind in order to solve a problem.

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oddlyaromatic
Not tech, but I have a full time job (managing disability support programs,
40+ hours a week) and a part time job (10-20 hours/week running a small one-
person office), with occasional work on the road as a music tour manager (4 or
5 weekends a year). I don't always tell the main full time employer what I'm
doing when I request time off, but it's always worked out so far. Main problem
is tiredness when you end up working many days without actual time off. I'd be
careful of making a solid hourly commitment to a second job. I just about get
away with it because my employers are flexible and care more that work gets
done than where I am or how I do it.

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salemh
Most of the clauses I've seen with larger clients (Marketing Agencies) relates
to work with their clients, or overlapping "competing" services for that
specific employer.

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tuckerwales
Yes, I work full-time (37.5 hrs per week) as a Software Engineer and also do
around 15 hours of consulting in my spare time.

In my contract, there is a clause that has an issue with this, but only if a
conflict of interest occurs. Since both companies are in very different
industries (defence & mobile), this hasn't been a problem so far.

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userol
Detected

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anta40
I ocasionally do short-term freelancing jobs, to get more cash :p

I don't remember whether this is stated in my employment agreement or not, but
practically freelancing is OK, as long as you get the job done first. Do it
after office hour, for example.

I'm in Indonesia, BTW.

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willmacdonald
I have a few freelance clients, but they only give very specific, time boxed,
defined tasks. As soon as they as for my opinion on how to design their site I
say 'no'.

For example 'we need a tweet this button in the side bar below the search
box'.

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IndianAstronaut
Working in finance or banking will severly restrict your ability to do this.
Definitely review your contract if you work in or plan to work in these areas.

