[noduerme]

Mentioning that you negotiated to keep your code from falling under "works for hire" does a lot of heavy lifting in this (very well packed) example. I recommend that the OP dig into what "works for hire" means in the US to get a sense of what they should negotiate [to avoid].

It can definitely be a win/win for the company as well as for an enterprising engineer. The general idea is simply to go outside the scope of your contract and do something the company didn't ask for, in exchange for a bit of money and the right to reuse whatever code you developed for them.

Avoiding works for hire contracts is how I built a 25 year war chest of reusable components and frameworks, each piece commissioned to an individual task but each used and modified in my next jobs for my next clients, until many versions later I would update my original clients with them.

My advice to OP is to always present your ideas to owners or managers with open ears, and explain how it will help the company. Secondly, never do the work for free. Thirdly, always retain your rights to your ideas and your code when you're working on something creative. If they have a problem with that you can also explain that it's unlikely anyone else will either fill this niche to save them money or that any competitor will ever actually know about or use what you will build for them, but that having it at your disposal is a way for you to continue increasing their efficiency (which is true). It's also a way to make them beholden to you at very little initial cost.

[tpoacher]

Naive question but, what's stopping the company from just saying "no, and actually it's now your job to also do this" ?