Employers! How would you think of your employees who have part time programming jobs, either to supplement their income or to learn something new? Do you think that there is a conflict of interest here?
And fellow programmers! What would you think of your colleagues who hold part time programming jobs?
If I felt their day job suffered from it I would have a problem. Otherwise I would encourage my employees to branch out and learn things they aren't learning in the work place.
My colleagues can do whatever they want to in thier spare time so long as they keep on delivering at work.
Some employers might have an issue if you are working for a competitor, or if you were likely to be poached by whomever you are doing part time work for.
I have had one potential employer ask me to sign a contract specifically forbidding me from moonlighting, which I refused to do, on the grounds that what I did on my hours was absolutely none of their business.
That being said, I can see their point, As an employer I might be worried about distracted, tired employees sneaking time to put into their side jobs. As an employee I'm just envious.
I may not be challenging them sufficiently. I should really make sure that the hot-shot programmers feel sufficiently challenged at my organization. If somebody feels they need to go outside my company for a challenge, than shame on me. I need to be doing something different.
My boss loves it. He just asks that my part time jobs do not conflict or compete with my full time job. He also sees it as a way for me to get extra experience at no cost to him.
What an employee is doing during his free time is his own business.
But one of the principles behind Agile is the sustainability of the pace. The same principle could be applied here.
Only a few people could work 8 hours a day, then spend several more hours on their side job and maintain this cycle for a long period of time. If they have any kind of social/family life it becomes even more challenging.
At some point the quality of work of such person almost always will start to suffer. And from my experience it is usually the 'main' work.
As long as you're not in violation of any non-compete clauses in your offer/contract and you deliver as expected at your main/full-time job, feel free to do whatever you want.
As a co-worker, I don't care if you have 3 programming jobs, also work as bartender, stripper, and running for mayor. As long as it doesn't negatively impact me, my work and my company's success at the end of the day.
I work 15h a week, and it's going decently. I spend my time mostly delegating work. And tell people what it is supposed to look like (mostly UI stuff) and discuss.
I don't code that much. And only architectural changes and (to me) very important components.
It's going pretty well, although I am only available 3 or 4 days a week.
€: I spend my available free time on studies and other stuff I am interested in.
This is fairly dangerous if the full time job is a programming job. It's probably still dangerous even if not.
Most corporate jobs require some IP agreement that basically means they own your creative output. If you then go and work for another party, then you've just given your moonlight client a copyright infringement problem.
I'd wonder how they'd keep the work load down to being just part-time, but then I've generally been at places where a full time employee can spend 60-80 hours a week working on projects getting either overtime or trying to get a bonus depending on the company's rules and laws for that area.
Generally, I'd be fine with it as long as it didn't interfere with the work on their regular job or other job as I could sort of picture some programmers having a couple part-time jobs to make the same that a full-time employee does.
Depends on the level. For simple coder, I would not mind.
Above some level, a good programmer's mind work on the project all the time. The best ideas come in the shower. If there is another work on that mind, the employer gets less.
Personally, I think what they do on their own time is their business, but I have seen two problems.
I know of a number of people who have had side jobs and use their full time work to further their side jobs. That's annoying simply because there's a deadline to hit the rest of us are working hard and that person isn't pulling their weight.
There is a really easy conflict of interest. Programmers main job is creating intellectual property. Who isn't to say that they aren't building something at work and then reusing it as part of their side job. I know part of this is unavoidable, you discover a new way to do something etc, but I have seem blatent rip offs too: copying the db structure etc and everything in between.
I don't try and hold it against people who have a second programming job. At the same point in time the question has to be raised are they stealing from their current employeer? I don't take side jobs simply to keep myself out of that situation.
I think I wouldn't like it. If you hang on to problems of your other job while sitting at the other company's desk, it would be terrible. For some people it's not that easy to free their minds. If I'd be an employer I'd only employ someone like this if he's extremely valuable.
On the other hand studies + job is quite ok (and not just because it's what I am doing, but because you have more freedom in slicing your available time, thus being able to focus/work a lot/learn a lot when needed)
Ok, as an employer, I would have serious reservations with anyone employed by me as a full time programmer taking an additional part time programming job. The scope for conflict of interest is just too high, not to mention the dilution of focus. That said, the people I employ get well paid to do a good job, and my reservations regarding moonlighting would extend to any senior individual, not just programmers.
I guess it depends very much on the company, if the people I have working for me thought they could work another 15 hours per week productively, I'd probably pay them more for those hours than another company. If they want to do it for other reasons, such as wanting to learn new skills, or experience a different working environment, that is a different matter. Maybe time for them to rethink their position or move on.
I would be very miffy if my coworker was working for someone else on company time, when there was work to be done for the company. That's not dealing square with the company.
As an Open Source developer, I essentially always have at least a half dozen parallel programming projects going on at once which effectively act as a part-time job. As long as there is no obvious conflict of interest, and none of the jobs are hurting because of lack of time or too much stress, a person should be able to do anything they want with their time.
In my experience, the best programmers are the ones with the most exposure to the most projects. This cross-training allows new ideas to flow between projects, and new techniques to be tried out on possibly less critical projects. The most stagnant environment is the office where all the programmers have worked for the same company and on the same project. That run the danger of programmers not having ten years experience, but one year's experience repeated ten times.
As to the question of "loyalty", since a programmer can do many dastardly and undetectable things, employers must already trust their programmers. If they don't trust them enough to allow them to hold a part-time job, they don't trust them enough with their business logic and should either get rid of that programmer or reevaluate their own ideas of trust.
If it's a question of money, the employer/employee relationship is essentially a monetary one. If the employee needs more money either the employer has to pony up, let the employee seek it elsewhere on their own time, or lose that employee to a better paying job. To think anything else is delusion. Preventing your programmers from pursuing side projects is throwing away free training and eventually they'll get frustrated and leave anyway.
There are two separate issues here as usually articulated by the employer/employment contract:
1) Conflict of interest. The employer typically doesn't want you doing anything where there may be conflict regarding intellectual property, business practices, etc. This is a no-brainer - nobody will support someone carrying on outside activity that represents a conflict of interest and as an employer I would prohibit such activity.
2) Conflict of commitment. Even if there is no conflict of interest, the employer often wants to ensure he has the exclusive benefit of your energies and time, whether in the office or outside. Whether or not this is reasonable is up to the individual, but I've seen lots of employment agreements that demand this exclusive focus. Personally, I would want exclusivity, but I would be prepared to pay for it. By the same token, I would ensure that employees have sufficient on-the-job time to engage in professional development, explore new technologies, and so on.
I'll moonlight occasionally when a friend asks. I stipulate I can do no more than 8 hours a week. My fulltime job takes precedence. Its really nice around the holidays as I have time off and can make enough for a grand Christmas. If there is a conflict of interest I ask my employer. They always say its OK, but then I've covered my rear. Some of the projects are similar to what I do for a hobby, so its even better when I can charge by the hour for it.
I would encourage everyone to either spend a few hours a week on their own time learning things that they don't use at their main job. If it's just learning or a part time job it doesn't matter to me. I personally enjoy having co-workers that go beyond what they do at work and then bring some of that knowledge and experience back to the job.
I've been programming for 28+ years. I have done programming work outside of my main job for 28+ years also. It has been my experience that my part time work is beneficial to me and my employer. With the exception of my very first programming job, I typically get experience on technology well ahead of it being implemented in my day job.
By far my main employer benefits from me doing the part time work then the other way around. I have really been able to improve my debugging and troubleshooting skills by working part time.
Key points are:
I believe it has worked well for me and my employers.
I have also struggled with this dilema and have even gone to the lengths of setting up a meeting with my lawyer.... My situation is a little different than most I've read but the conflict of interest is the same. I hold a full time job during the day and by night have a full out software company that I built from the ground up. My worry is and always has been when it takes off... Over the past few months it has grossed more and more money (A good problem to have), but not quite enough to quit the day job. I've heard rumors of people say whatever you do after work belongs to the company you work for... I completely disagree with this since most of my accomplishments have been outside of work. I'm still waiting for my meetng with the lawyr but what are everyone's thoughts regarding a programmer attempting to start their own business? Assumng the software they develop is completely opposite of what they develop for their employer... I'm not greedy by the way, I just can't afford to quite the day job:).... yet.
I think it's a great idea. As an employer I believe what my employees do in their own time is up to them. As long as it does not conflict with their work, I don't see an issue at all.
If anything I'd want to know as soon as an employee of mine was doing so. Who knows, the skills they're learning could perhaps be applied in their working position and ultimately help my business.
Knowledge is a wonderful thing, I would never dream of attempting to tell one of my employees to stop their part time habits especially if they involve programming.
What would you rather, them go out getting drunk of a night?