[thestoic]

Ideally the time you spend writing code is both compensated and under a Work For Hire of the company trying you out. Your current employer owns the IP of whatever you do during work ours and using their equipment not what you do on your own time.

[nappy-doo]

Not at Google.

[pjlegato]

At least in California, employers are statutorily prohibited from claiming rights to IP that was created on the employee's own time and using the employee's own equipment, and agreements that purport to waive this prohibition are void.

(CA Labor Code 2870-2872; http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab&gr...)

[nappy-doo]

Great. CA law doesn't apply in Massachusetts.