🥇How to Find a Job with a Good Contract

Hello, Habr users!

Recently, I've been through a considerable number of interviews and even received offers from some well-known as well as lesser-known European companies. However, today I'm not going to discuss how to prepare for tricky programming tasks or how to best showcase soft skills. Instead, we'll talk about open source and employment contracts, how they correspond with each other, and what potential pitfalls there may be. There’s nothing sadder than having to drop out after three stages of interviews and a week-long assignment, only to realize that the employment contract is one you wouldn't sign even under duress. I've seen many employment contracts and learned to distinguish very bad ones from bad ones, bad ones from mediocre, and mediocre from good. More details below.

Disclaimer: In this article, I will describe not only my experiences but also those of my acquaintances. For understandable reasons, I will not name companies specifically.

So, imagine this scenario: you spend a week on a test assignment, go through three stages of interviews, and receive an offer for relocation to Western Europe for relatively good pay. You're ready to drop everything and are packing your bags, but something feels off. You ask for a little more time to think it over and request a draft of the employment contract. You carefully study the contract, dive into all the details, and realize that this is an example of a very poor contract, under which you:

Have absolutely no right to disclose anything, at all. Otherwise, there's a hefty fine.
You can forget about your side projects. Otherwise, there's a hefty fine.
If there is any connection between what you create/invent long after being hired and what you worked on or even learned/gained experience about from this employer, then you must transfer all rights to him. Even if this requires traveling to another country to file patents and assign rights. Otherwise, there's a hefty fine.
You are looking at overtime without additional compensation.
The employer can change the terms of the contract unilaterally.

And that's far from all. In short, it’s clearly a no-go.

Even before this case, I seriously contemplated about Intellectual property clause or A paragraph on intellectual property rights in employment contracts for IT industry workers and programmers in particular. Writing quality code is often the only skill we have, which we hone over many years with the hope of selling it for a good price, but at some point, we realize that this skill can not only be sold but also invested in open source, which is increasingly referred to as the dark matter of the software industry, where its own 'gravity' and other 'laws of physics' operate. Contributing to open projects can be a means of self-development and networking with other developers, but often it is also to get noticed by potential employers. A profile on GitHub can often say much more about a developer than a LinkedIn profile, and writing open code, participating in collective code reviews, filing bugs, and writing documentation for open source projects becomes part of the life of the most active and goal-oriented developers.

While attending various IT conferences in Europe, I came across the term IP-friendly concerning employment contracts. This term refers to agreements that do not restrict employees in terms of directing their intellectual efforts during their free time or impose reasonable limitations to protect the employer from competition. For instance, contract conditions that state, 'everything created on the employer's equipment and by the employer's direct instructions belongs to the employer' are more IP-friendly than 'everything created during the term of the employment contract unconditionally belongs to the employer.' As they say, feel the difference!

Google was the first to recognize the importance of developers supporting open source projects, allowing its employees to spend up to 20% of their work time on open projects; other leading companies have picked up the trend and are keeping pace. The benefits for companies are clear; it's a win-win strategy, as the company gains a reputation as a hub for the most talented developers, which in turn attracts even more strong professionals. The entry barrier to such companies is very high, and they select the best of the best.

Most small companies only hear about new trends and try to include as many restrictions as possible in their employment contracts. I have encountered, without exaggeration, statements like "The employer owns everything created by the employee." It is a sad fact that many developers accept such conditions due to a lack of knowledge about intellectual property rights or because of difficult life situations (there’s no time to sift through offers). How can we improve the situation? In my opinion, there are several ways:

Increase awareness among IT industry workers about intellectual property rights.
Promote the idea of IP-friendly contracts among employers.
Not only participate in open source projects but also be evangelists for open source.
Support developers in their disputes with corporations, striving to ensure that public opinion is on the developer's side if a corporation tries to ‘claim’ a project.

In the end, I found a job with much better contract terms. The key is not to jump at the first offer and to keep looking. And contribute to open source, because a developer's cultural legacy is their code, and if the developer writes all their code for corporations, their legacy, their visible and tangible imprint on the digital landscape is equal to null.

P.S. If you enjoyed this article, become my follower on Habrahabr — I have many more unrealized ideas I want to write about, so you'll be the first to know about them.

P.P.S. A continuation of the article is planned...

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