[codingdave]

If you sign a contract that makes all your ideas the property of the company you work for, that is a problem. But I suggest pushing back on that contract - ask them to take out those clauses. If they say no, you then get to decide if it is a deal-breaker for you or not. But I suspect most of the time, they will work with you.

[iraphael]

>they will work with you

Not so sure about that... Tech giants have the advantage of being able to pick from the best applicants out there. In the same way you could say "having these clauses is a deal breaker for me", it's very easy for them to say "NOT having them is a deal breaker for US".

The difference is that if you refuse the offer, you still have to find a jobs elsewhere (and I suspect that most giants will have the same clauses by default). But if they refuse the offer, there is already someone being interviewed that will accept the clauses.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I think that unless these clauses are deal breakers for most developers out there, then this practice will continue to be done.

[calpaterson]

> But if they refuse the offer, there is already someone being interviewed that will accept the clauses.

I bet most companies wish that was so. Probably it isn't, especially if you follow fashion and reject anyone who doesn't know how to invert a binary tree ;).

If you turn down a job because of a bad contract term the company is probably not going to have someone else waiting to jump on! This is one of those cases where market forces would probably indicate that it's worth negotiating but in practice companies will be reluctant for reasons of bureaucracy

[ryandrake]

Probably not one, but ten people being interviewed that will accept the clauses. These days people are lined up for blocks for work.

[morgante]

> These days people are lined up for blocks for work.

There are lines of developers waiting for work?

Please let me know where I can find such lines. I could earn some hefty referral fees from the dozens of hiring managers I know who are desperate to find good developers.

[fapjacks]

You're right, but all of those people can't be good developers. Good developers are still hard to find. You can have a line of people out the door coming in for an interview, but not a single one of them worth a shit behind a keyboard. If you are provably a good developer with a solid track record, your leverage for getting contracts modified to your liking is substantially higher.

[codingdave]

Maybe, but in that case HN seems like the perfect community to take a stand and start telling developers not to sign those contracts.

[iraphael]

True. And I applaud the effort. I just think that, in most cases, they won't work with you in this area. So when telling developers to take a stand, we should also prepare them for what is most likely going to happen when they do.

[calpaterson]

For many big companies it will prove very difficult to push back on any contract term. Contracts are normally standard across the whole organisation and and special casing, for example in an overly broad non-compete or a IP ownership term, will normally be a non-starter.

You might get a waiver for a specific pre-existing project but probably that is about it.

I live in the UK and in the past when I've asked experts about this stuff they say: "It's an Americanism - don't worry about it - if push comes to shove a judge will think it's too strict and throw the entire thing out". Apparently in the UK there is some kind of rule where if a contract is excessively one-sided or otherwise onerous it can be voided. YMMV!

[nostrademons]

When I signed Google's IP agreement there wasn't even a paper contract - it was all electronic, you e-signed it, there was a form to list previous discoveries, but there was no way to redline or make modifications to the contract itself. The software wouldn't support it.

[jsprogrammer]

Electronic contracts won't sustain much evidentiary support of...anything.

Maybe they filmed you while you read/interacted with the contract and required you to score high on a quiz about the contents of the contract?

[nostrademons]

E-signing and electronic contracts are all over now...heck, most of the patents I filed with the USPTO were e-signed. If they don't provide much evidentiary support of...anything...then our legal system is in serious trouble.

[jsprogrammer]

Yes, this is true.

Unless extraordinary measures were taken at the time of acceptance, there will be no real way to prove what the actual text was that you saw and allegedly agreed to. Presumably the text of the contract and the symbol of your acceptance are stored in some fairly standard database. Almost all computer data can be modified to look any way a party desires. How can we know that the contract Google presents as evidence was the exact contract you agreed to at that computer terminal however many years ago?

[vvanders]

I think you'll find for large tech giants(like referenced here) they won't budge unless you're Carmack or someone high profile.

[ryandrake]

Maybe small companies will, but big companies will not "work with you" on it. I remember trying this tactic in the past and receiving a very clear "either sign the IP agreement without modification or good luck in your job search" from legal.