To all devs who do side work here-
How do you deal with legal issues e.g ensuring that your apps and programs that you developed after working hours belong to you and not to your employer?

Make sure that my contract has a clause about it, technically if I worked on anything in the same field as company software I might get into shit, but I don't and so they don't care

@TheLazyDev
What if it's a self project? With no clients?

You need to look at your employment contract. Also read this.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item/...

@Chlodovechus as long as my stuff doesn't interfere with the business, they don't care. Pretty sure that's what most companies are like. Unless you work for some dodgy place that can't wait to steal their employees IP, you'd be fine, especially if it's not a commercial piece of software

Always read your contract and always negotiate if there's anything you don't like. I always fight very hard for a portfolio clause, for example.

Also: When a company offered me a job and we sat down to negotiate the contract, they tried to get me to agree to a "we own any idea you have while you work here" clause. I threatened to walk unless they struck it from the contract. They eventually complied.

I didn't need it, but if I had...