Moonlighting
Copied and inspired heavily by 37 Signal's Moonlighting Policy.
Moonlighting means working other professional, paid jobs outside your work at Zemuria. It’s not a black-and-white topic. There are one-time gigs, other pursuits, or opportunities that help you grow and make life interesting. We want to support that. But we want to ensure professional endeavors outside of Zemuria don’t create conflicts of interest or affect your time, dedication, or performance at Zemuria. So, it’s a delicate balance.
With that in mind, here are some examples of what we’d consider OK and what we would consider a conflict of interest and not OK:
OK
An occasional side gig, free or paid, for someone you know. For example, if you want to work on a friend’s website or a design or writing project for something you’re involved with, that’s fine.
An occasional speaking gig, free or paid. Someone’s going to pay you to give a talk somewhere? That’s fine as long as it doesn’t involve multiple days off for travel (unless you use your own personal vacation time against this travel time).
A side business (including YouTube channels) that differs from your day job, as long as the commitment is only a few hours a week. If you come to work exhausted because you’re trying to start a full-time business on the side, it will impact your performance here.
Serve as an advisor for another company or be on a board, as long as there’s no conflict of interest. The time commitment must be under a few hours a month. And if there’s a scheduling conflict, Zemuria gets priority.
Do volunteer or occasional pro-bono work for a cause you’re actively involved with. A little work here and there is fine, but, for example, becoming an organization’s full-time web designer and being on the hook to work during your standard workday, etc, would not be OK.
Not OK
You can’t work full-time or part-time for another company in our industry. If you’re unclear about what our industry is or what your specific team is work, and you have a specific situation you’d like to talk about, ping CoS/HR.
Go out on a regular speaking circuit tour which will require multiple days of travel multiple times a year. That’s too disruptive to our own work schedule and to your fellow teammates.
Consult for other companies in our industry where there may be a conflict of interest (a competitor, a product tangentially related to Zemuria, etc).
Be aggressive in marketing your availability for side work. If something comes to you through a friend or some connection, fine, but aggressively promoting something on the side will ultimately result in a conflict of interest here at work.
Take on anything outside of work that’ll pull attention from work. For example, if you wanted to launch an app (for some reason not covered under our IP laws, let's say for a cause), but the app requires providing timely customer support to people who use the app, that’s going to eat into your day here at work. That would ultimately be a problem.
In general,
Here are a few guiding principles about whether something could be a problem:
Is it competitive?
Does it occupy a disproportionate amount of your time?
Does it require you to be away during times when you’re needed at work?
Is it another paid gig that employs the same skills Zemuria is paying you for? In general, we’d like to be lenient within reason, but we will be strict if we see it impact your time, attention, or performance here at work.
It’s hard to come up with one-size-fits-all rules. If you’re in doubt, please reach out to your manager.