Ask HN: Are you working paid part-time while still having a full-time job?

I would worry about this about as much as your employer worries about ensuring they have a well thought out career development plan for you that includes a fully funded pension.

I am not currently doing this, but have in the past. What follows is only my experience (full time roles in bay area startups with very standard contracts)

There are two points of overlap between your employer and your side business to be mindful of.

1) time and resources.

Generally speaking, your employer owns all IP you develop at work, or using work resources. In practice, I've never seen an employer be a dick about this, but you should still be exceedingly careful. It's really easy to be 100% free and clear on this one. Just don't ever do side project work (to include answering emails, etc) on work machines or on premises at work.

2) intellectually property.

This one's trickier. The agreement that matters most you already signed, if your employer uses one. It's basically a list of stuff you've already invented or have as a side project, and it exists specifically as a papertrail. eg: I work on finance software interfaces as my full time job, and have also done work on this for myself on the side. This agreement says "I created product X, which does Y with method Z" as part of the employment agreement, so that they can't later claim that I only came up with Y and Z because of my employer's training or resources, thus entitling employer to the project.

How careful you need to be here depends on the thematic proximity of your employer and your side project. If you work for dropbox and your side project is flappy bird, you're probably fine. If you work for adobe and your side project is an alternative to photoshop, do a lot of homework and consider talking to a lawyer.

TL;DR: don't use employer time or resources, do use common sense.

Most employment agreements I've signed have at least a notification clause, if not an approval one.

Those may be illegal in your jurisdiction but in most places in the US they arent.

You should verify this before starting to look for part time work.

Respectfully, I'd argue that building your own skill set or business is going to be exponentially more valuable use for those hours anyway, unless you really need the cash.

What I do on my own time is none of my employer's business. Mileage and regulations may vary, of course.

I work about 20hrs a week on various side-gigs. Pretty strict about the working hours and work not overlapping with whatever my current employer is doing. It's nice to keep things separate.

When I built https://emailoctopus.com I was in a different full-time role. Unless such a clause is written in my contract, why should anything I do in my spare time need sign off from an employer?

Absolutely... when I'm not working, I'm working. I'm working freelance for several clients as a web designer on the side as well as a full-time web designer. I also run a few websites that generate some ad revenue.. wish it was enough to pay some bills, but it does pay for the server they sit on. When I'm not working on my websites, I'm working on my side projects which don't generate any money yet, but those side projects are teaching me how to create subscription-based projects that I can use to start generating recurring revenue. My goal right now is to make my primary day job my secondary job and turn my side project(s) into my primary business. I pretty much work until my brain no longer functions or I can't focus on what I'm doing any longer, then I know it's time for me to stop what I'm doing and sleep. There are also times where I need to walk away from projects and simply go for a walk, bike ride, or do something else to clear my mind in order to solve a problem.

Not tech, but I have a full time job (managing disability support programs, 40+ hours a week) and a part time job (10-20 hours/week running a small one-person office), with occasional work on the road as a music tour manager (4 or 5 weekends a year). I don't always tell the main full time employer what I'm doing when I request time off, but it's always worked out so far. Main problem is tiredness when you end up working many days without actual time off. I'd be careful of making a solid hourly commitment to a second job. I just about get away with it because my employers are flexible and care more that work gets done than where I am or how I do it.

Most of the clauses I've seen with larger clients (Marketing Agencies) relates to work with their clients, or overlapping "competing" services for that specific employer.

Yes, I work full-time (37.5 hrs per week) as a Software Engineer and also do around 15 hours of consulting in my spare time.

In my contract, there is a clause that has an issue with this, but only if a conflict of interest occurs. Since both companies are in very different industries (defence & mobile), this hasn't been a problem so far.

I ocasionally do short-term freelancing jobs, to get more cash :p

I don't remember whether this is stated in my employment agreement or not, but practically freelancing is OK, as long as you get the job done first. Do it after office hour, for example.

I'm in Indonesia, BTW.

I have a few freelance clients, but they only give very specific, time boxed, defined tasks. As soon as they as for my opinion on how to design their site I say 'no'.

For example 'we need a tweet this button in the side bar below the search box'.

Working in finance or banking will severly restrict your ability to do this. Definitely review your contract if you work in or plan to work in these areas.