Ian, What you do at home is of no concern to your employer unless you compete directly, or can't get the job done. I'm always getting hornswaggled into management jobs, so I entertain my engineering curiosities via consulting in the evenings. Have not had a problem in the past 10 years doing this, though I have used some vacation time to take care of "home" business. If you feel that your home business will require some of your time during the day, then I would discuss this with your prospective employer. Maybe some form of comp time would be in order. If you need to sign an employment contract, make sure that any development you do not related to your employer is owned by you. When I worked for Capita, they originally wanted ownership to all designs, no matter where or when developed. Of course, this was changed to read "designs which related to the work and business at Capita Research......" Good Luck, Scott F. Touchton 1550 Engineering Manager JDS Uniphase Ian Chapman cc: Sent by: pic Subject: [EE]: Use of design skills outside full employment microcontroller discussion list 01/05/02 06:26 AM Please respond to pic microcontroller discussion list I'd appreciate any practical guidance on ways of retaining my independence to use my design skills elsewhere if I re-enter full employment. I am currently self-employed (in business partnership with my wife) but I am considering the possibility of returning to full-time employment. My wife is able to continue running our joint business on her own, but would benefit from my design input at times. I would like to set things up with my prospective employer in a way that does not compromise my ability to do this, but I am not sure how this is best achieved. In practice, I see no conflict of interest between our business aims and those of any prospective employers (indeed, there may be synergies), and I do not intend to use any of my prospective employer's resources to pursue the former. Also, I propose only a light and non-time-critical ongoing commitment to my wife's (our) business - essentially to maintain existing products so that we can continue to secure an income from new sales. I appear to be in a good negotiating position with a prospective employer who wants my skills but is currently unable to offer a salary that meets my expectations. The job looks good in many other ways, so common sense suggests that there is a "win-win" out there. However, I anticipate that it may be difficult to draw up a watertight contractual agreement, and it would probably defeat the object to engage a solicitor to attempt to make this so. Does anyone have experience of sensible and effective solutions to this? Thanks in advance. -- Ian Chapman Chapmip Technology, UK -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads