Optum forces you to sign documents granting them ownership of any ideas that you develop outside of work. Doesn't matter if it's healthcare related or not. If you participate in open source projects, have an idea that you aim to develop, already have something under development, or a side hustle then you should reconsider employment with Optum.
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That's a great call out for any would be engineers. Why come work for Optum if you have side projects or plan on them? We should really organize a union under the Communication Workers of America. These big conglomerate corporations aren't held in check by the government anymore.
https://cwa-union.org/
I ran my document by a lawyer friend and her opinion was that even if you wrote a desktop or cloud app on your weekends and holidays with your own dev hardware and software licenses in a completely different industry, like gaming, then Optum could potentially lay claim to that work.
I negotiated mine to not include some industries. You gotta ask.
Yes we can complain about it and not every large corporation does this. Read their original post. Outside of work and presumably on their own equipment and licenses.
It only grants them ownership if you develop it during your work time or if it is developed using their resources aka laptops. I understand the frustration with the company, but these documents are required by almost every other larger company. They don't want us spending our paid work hours nor using their costly resources on things that don't make them/us money, nor something that could be future competition. I've been worried and frustrated about the layoffs recently myself, but you can't complain about something that almost every company does on just this page.
@OP+1nlGX9m1 so who is in charge of open source now?
Stealing worker ideas is the hallmark of a sh---y company.
Yep. I wish I hadn't transitioned to this company.