People ops · 2 min read
Side gigs
Our stance on side projects, moonlighting, and who owns what you build on your own time.
We hire builders, and builders build. A lot of the best people we know have a side project or two going, and we take that as a good sign, not a threat. Pre-existing open-source work is one of the strongest signals we look for, precisely because it means someone finds the craft fun rather than a chore. So the default here is simple: your time outside work is yours, and we're glad when you spend some of it making things.
Money on the side is fine
Some of those projects earn money, and that's genuinely fine. We call them side gigs on purpose, because that's what they are: a thing on the side, not the main event.
The one line that matters: Flagon needs to be your main focus while you're here. We're small, and that only works if the people building it are actually invested in it, not treating it as a paycheck that funds the real thing. So a few hours a week on a paid side project is no problem; a second full-time job wearing a disguise is. If a side gig starts pulling on the time or attention the work needs, that's the signal to rebalance, and we'd rather talk about it early than pretend it isn't happening.
If your side thing is growing into something you'd want to do full-time one day, tell us. That's not a betrayal, it's useful information, and we'd rather help you plan the runway than be surprised by a resignation. Playing the long game with people means their goals and ours don't have to be secret from each other.
Who owns what you make
Fuzziness here causes real headaches, so the lines are simple:
- What you build on your own time, with your own tools, is yours. We don't try to claim ownership of personal projects, open-source contributions, or anything else you make outside the work. Go build.
- What you build for Flagon belongs to Flagon. Normal, and the reason your pay and equity exist.
- Don't cross the streams. The one thing to be careful about is mixing Flagon's non-open code or confidential context into a personal project, or vice versa. Anything of ours that's explicitly open source is fair to use; anything that isn't, keep out of your side work. When in doubt, ask before you entangle them, because untangling it later is where the genuine legal headaches live.
Use your judgement, and just ask
None of this is meant to police your weekends. If something feels like a grey area, a competing product, a client who's also our customer, unusual time demands, raise it in the open early. A two-minute conversation beats a conflict nobody named.