Work dilemma

[dsr-burnley]

Semi-related tale I was told in America. Ford had a problem with their transmission and a bright lad who worked for them did some tinkering, in his own time and in his own garage, and found a solution. He offered it to Ford for $10,000. They declined, said that his work belonged to Ford because he was a Ford employee, and put it into the cars but paid him nothing but his wage. 

 

He sued, and won,and Ford had to pay him many millions a year for donkeys' years. Serve them right. 

 

Two crucial points that differ from yours. One, it was in his own time; two, it was USA laws.

[ozleicester]

Sadly my understanding is, if you are working for the company and develop something under their ownership....it is their IP 

 

and unless they are a very rare corporation...they will exploit it and you 

[Milo]

Would there be any benefit to starting up a company for your specific product.
 

Then pointing your employers to this amazing new company and doing it that way?

 

 

[Jon the Hat]

23 minutes ago, Milo said:

Would there be any benefit to starting up a company for your specific product.
 

Then pointing your employers to this amazing new company and doing it that way?

 

 

Unless by benefit you mean sacking and prosecution I’m guessing not.

[Milo]

Why prosecution if it was developed in his own time with his own resources? 

[Wolfox]

5 hours ago, Milo said:

Why prosecution if it was developed in his own time with his own resources? 

It’s hardly the low risk approach and I suspect their resources to fight it will be greater than his if they choose to kick off,  but it’s not unheard  of for this to happen…. Loads of ex employees consult for their former employers…. 

[Chelmofox]

On 10/05/2024 at 21:29, Kopic said:

I did it myself at home over a few evenings, sat in the sun with a pint. They allowed access to a training system outside the local network so I've been playing around with it, there's a few other bits I've been working on but this is most significant.

 

Creating this tool is absolutely nothing to do with my job or any role I have within this temporary project. I made it to make my own job easier once the depot converts systems and realised its potential afterwards.

Firstly, congrats on building something you are really proud of. I recently visited a contact from a client i worked with 4 companies ago and was astonished to find they are still using one of the first systems I ever built. It was an amazing feeling, although i got paid a junior wage when i built it and certainly wasn't reimbursed adequately for something that ran a business for over 20 years.

 

With your points about when and how you worked on it, be a little bit careful about how you frame this. Even if you worked on it out of hours and to solved something for you (that you think can be scaled out), you wouldn't have thought about the tool if you weren't working for your employer. Employment contracts generally cover this by pointing out that IP is owned by the business and saying you did it out of hours won't matter here because the value of what's built belongs to the business. 

 

Time is money, but when building time saving tools developers aren't paid in hours saved. Our dev team has recently released automated trading, which introduces massive savings and scale opportunities, but everyone on the project is paid their wage. 

 

I don't know what you've built or how it works, but there is another consideration with deploying software in that there are licensing / documentation / training / long term support considerations. Also, the business and suppliers usually require a level of quality assurance. You may say it works fine but software teams go through processes to prove this and have to prove it. 

 

I think Raj hit the nail on the head. Find someone senior who you trust and explain how / why you did what you did. In our organisation, when we have seen aptitude like this, we see if there are long term opportunities for upskilling into the technology team. In my last company / team, one of the best QA testers on the team was someone from the business who took a keen interest in the technology, and has now retrained into a web developer. 

[Chelmofox]

7 hours ago, Milo said:

Would there be any benefit to starting up a company for your specific product.
 

Then pointing your employers to this amazing new company and doing it that way?

It depends on how complex the problem is to solve. If the tool was created over the course of a few evenings then the business won't find it difficult to replicate. I am presuming the problem is specific to this business due to how the software project was scoped.

[HighPeakFox]

I have no useful advice, but it is heartening to find out how many of you are skilled and openly helpful to @Kopic

[Tommy G]

Was this created using your own time and resources or the employers?

 

From my point of view as an employer, it would get my back up if someone came to me with all kinds of demands - I'd set out what it is you've done, what you believe it's worth to the buisness - think carefully about this - not just the absolute value, but time savings, resources etc and pitch what you'd like for it - no one is going to do that for you, whatever you are happy with for you to continue in your role. 

 

I'd then negotaite package up that amount in £ terms, probably make you sign a form of an NDA then probably promote you. The reason for the NDA is it could cause some discontent with your peers should they find out, and also expectation for others. Pay is very sensitive.  

 

Good luck.

[Kopic]

3 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

Was this created using your own time and resources or the employers?

 

From my point of view as an employer, it would get my back up if someone came to me with all kinds of demands - I'd set out what it is you've done, what you believe it's worth to the buisness - think carefully about this - not just the absolute value, but time savings, resources etc and pitch what you'd like for it - no one is going to do that for you, whatever you are happy with for you to continue in your role. 

 

I'd then negotaite package up that amount in £ terms, probably make you sign a form of an NDA then probably promote you. The reason for the NDA is it could cause some discontent with your peers should they find out, and also expectation for others. Pay is very sensitive.  

 

Good luck.

I made it in my own time at home on a personal laptop and tested it on a training system (website) provided to us which we can access from home. I did it to make my own job easier and then saw its potential. 

 

I haven't been able to have any meaningful discussions with anyone yet, however it was approved for internal testing at our site with the look to put it out nationwide, with me controlling it (I am still the only one with actual access to the tool, I've set it up for other people to use myself). My colleagues have all heaped praise on it, it's made a job go from noone wanting to ever do it to the only one people want to do. I'd estimate it's halved the time it takes to do that specific role, and cut mistakes to almost zero.

 

I don't think I will really get anything out of it, as I said previously it's a small part of an absolutely enormous project the company is undertaking, just hoping the senior team at my site comprehend what I have achieved and the benefit to their site it will generate. With that in mind in hoping to chat to someone this week.

[Raj]

Do it sooner rather than later, as you've left it a few weeks already and the longer it goes you wont do anything.

 

 

[Tommy G]

1 hour ago, Kopic said:

I made it in my own time at home on a personal laptop and tested it on a training system (website) provided to us which we can access from home. I did it to make my own job easier and then saw its potential. 

 

I haven't been able to have any meaningful discussions with anyone yet, however it was approved for internal testing at our site with the look to put it out nationwide, with me controlling it (I am still the only one with actual access to the tool, I've set it up for other people to use myself). My colleagues have all heaped praise on it, it's made a job go from noone wanting to ever do it to the only one people want to do. I'd estimate it's halved the time it takes to do that specific role, and cut mistakes to almost zero.

 

I don't think I will really get anything out of it, as I said previously it's a small part of an absolutely enormous project the company is undertaking, just hoping the senior team at my site comprehend what I have achieved and the benefit to their site it will generate. With that in mind in hoping to chat to someone this week.

Why don't you think you will get anything out of it, I guess with that mindset you probably won't without being over critical. What is the budget of the project? You mention it's big, so there's no reason why you couldn't get 30-40% of a bigger number, if the senior team are smart they will look at further opportunities to develop either the tool or you.

 

55 minutes ago, Raj said:

Do it sooner rather than later, as you've left it a few weeks already and the longer it goes you wont do anything.

 

 

I'd agree with this, the longer it goes on with it being used in the business the less likely you are to get anything out of it for yourself. 

[Kopic]

1 hour ago, Raj said:

Do it sooner rather than later, as you've left it a few weeks already and the longer it goes you wont do anything.

 

 

I totally agree, I've been guilty of this my whole life

 

4 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

Why don't you think you will get anything out of it, I guess with that mindset you probably won't without being over critical. What is the budget of the project? You mention it's big, so there's no reason why you couldn't get 30-40% of a bigger number, if the senior team are smart they will look at further opportunities to develop either the tool or you.

Without going into too much detail, this company is massive and they are undertaking, in their words, the biggest project of it's kind ever inside Europe (no idea if this is true). Due to delays they are also forking out over 12 million a month to the old system owners after missing the deadline to complete. So their priority is to get the project done. What I've made is a small addon to what they are implementing (software that runs their entire network, owned by an American company). It makes an enormous difference to this specific job, however the project itself is so massive and all encompassing it's unlikely to be noticed higher up without some real force from people more senior than myself. I am in an (almost) entry-level job within one site, there's about 30 sites nationally. My most senior manager available to chat is a shift manager, noone more senior is ever available locally. The more I think about it the less likely I think I'll get more than a thank you. To be honest if my site know what I've done and it opens opportunities to me locally I think I'd be happy. I do know its worth a lot to them, but perhaps the timing isn't great.

[Raj]

32 minutes ago, Kopic said:

I totally agree, I've been guilty of this my whole life

 

DONT beat yourself up about it kiddo.

Its easy for us to give you advice, your the one who has to do it.

 

BELIVE IN YOURSELF!