

Side Projects: Learning experience vs. Distraction - abbottry
http://ryanabbott.com/side-projects-learning-experience-vs-distraction

======
hkarthik
This is a great post. Back when I was a corporate developer doing .NET, I
never had many side projects. Maybe just a library or simple utility to do
things like move photos around.

Now as a developer primarily working in Ruby, I always feel the need to have a
side project to hack on in addition to my day job. The side projects allow for
unsafe experimentation with new technologies. After a reasonable amount of
vetting, I find that I'm able to make better decisions in my day job as a
result. I think most Ruby developers today work in a similar fashion.

The startups that I've worked for never had much concern about what I did in
my personal time, but now that I'm working for an acquired company that's part
of a big corporate entity, it's a little different. I get more of the looks,
comments, etc and can't be as public about my side projects. Also I can't take
the side projects as seriously (i.e. get paid subscribers) because that could
jeopardize my employment. I'm okay with this for now, but I understand that
many would find this appalling. I think you just have to find the right
balance between what's good for you versus what's good for them.

~~~
abbottry
"unsafe experimentation with new technologies" love this, couldn't agree more
with this statement.

It's likely a different way of thinking, possibly an old vs. new. For me, if I
work with people that are hacking on cool stuff, publicly, its a great
recruiting tool, its reassurance that you've made a great hire, and its
confidence that they code going into production is battle tested in more than
just localhost.

------
tudorconstantin
The managers that forbid their employees to work on side projects are plain
dumb.

The most important gain for the employer is the fact that the employee trains
himself on new technologies, for free, in his own spare time.

The risk would be that the employee might leave if his side project is a
success. With around 4% rate of high success in the startup world, the risk of
leaving is quite small.

~~~
toumhi
Reminds me of that time when my previous company tried to create such a policy
... I even wrote a stack overflow question at that time:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3009885/should-a-
company-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3009885/should-a-company-
prevent-employees-from-publishing-an-app-in-an-appstore-in-thei)

As I wrote at the time, quoting the head of development: "outside work
activities create a conflict of interest. [...] [we don't want that] you use
your spare time to work on your app, and once it takes off you quit your job".

I remember replying that in that case kickboxing also creates a conflict of
interest.

The result: lots of developers started to leave that company.

------
h2s

         > they thought for some reason they owned everything
         > I created, at any time, ever (sorry, no)
    

How common is this? I have yet to encounter it, but if I did I'd consider it
an enormous red flag. It sends some very strong messages:

    
    
        - We lack the respect for you to even be subtle about
          leveraging the asymmetry of our power relationship in
          order to try to fuck you.
        - None of your potential future colleagues here are likely
          to be passionate about their craft, because people who enjoy
          making things of their own don't sign our contract.
    

I'm aware that employers are often willing to compromise about things like
that during negotiations, but by that point the message has surely been sent.

~~~
jwwest
Pretty common in BigCorp land. The problem is that many of these IP Agreements
are very badly worded. The spirit is that you should not take work you do for
your employer and turn around and create a product that directly or indirectly
competes with them in the same industry.

I'm not sure how enforceable these agreements are. Like anything with our
legal system in the US, they're used often to bully people into submission
with the threat of legal action, regardless of the company's actual intent. In
California, there's a wide range of employee protection laws in place that
would make these difficult, if not impossible to enforce. Not sure about
elsewhere in the country. (standard IANAL disclaimer applies)

One place I worked at had a pretty boilerplate IP Agreement. I worked with
them to change some of the wording so it was less vague. There is often a
section on these things where you can provide "prior inventions" that are
excluded from the agreement. I took the opportunity to list every idea (as
vaguely as possible) I might want to pursue in during the expected course of
my employment.

------
emackn
When a company makes claim to your after hours work, Is that the line between
a "corporation" and "start up"?

I saw this at a previous company (some say it's common place). They put the
legal-sleaze into the stock option documents saying employees would have to
seek written consent for work outside of the company. So classy!

------
ibudiallo
I work on my side project every spare minutes I have. Tools that I create on
the side have benefited my employer so much. If they were to give me a hard
time it will be their loss. I can always quit and work in my own, smaller pay
check but you get peace of mind.

~~~
abbottry
Problem is the agreements were discussing typically have a 'non-compete' for a
period of time. So you can't create anything that resembles work you were
doing at your employer for typically 2 years. For this reason :)

~~~
pyre
If you really wanted to pursue it, you could probably force them to explicitly
define what the mean by 'compete' (thereby narrowing what they can come after
you for), or else give you compensation for the period that they want you to
be excluded from working. It might take some legal maneuvering though.

------
nbashaw
I'm also a big fan of side projects. Problem is, i'm a product guy, and the
whole point of what I do is to try and make things people want. Not learn a
new technology. I still haven't been able to find the right balance. Any
advice?

~~~
abbottry
I have features I've built, and entire products for that matter, that were
nothing more than a Frankenstein of things I've picked out of side projects.
Sometimes I learn 2 things completely separate from each other, and then 6
months down the line have a realization that those two things would be amazing
together in application.

Product focused or not, there is no reason that you should prevent yourself
from learning just because it doesn't have a TLD.

------
cdelsolar
I've used my various side projects to learn technologies that I then use in my
actual job. For example, I first tested Redis on my side project, as well as a
JS/CSS compressor and a newer version of Django.

