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Ask HN: How to negotiate contract details Amazon (specifics in post)

2 points by nonplus ↗ HN
Some context: I have negotiated b2b contracts for businesses, as well as contracts for work in the past; but I have never ventured father than pushing back on a non compete, or benefits of some kind.

I am interested in the following areas/I don't have experience in the below:

* Being able to do (unrelated) consulting work via an SCORP while employed at Amazon. * Being able to work on a game while working at Amazon as if I didn't work at Amazon (licensing). * Continuing to contribute to FOSS projects

All of the above are obviously off company time and hardware.

I am searching for and reading previous posts on these topics; but would appreciate any links to previous discussions on this, or direct feedback from FAANG employees.

What would you have done differently in the above areas? At what point in the hiring process should I be pushing for the above? If these are unrealistic, is there a middle ground I can shoot for?

Once again thanks for sharing your time/experience.

6 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 26.9 ms ] thread
encryptluks2
What you're talking about here is trying to negotiate with someone who is trying to make it very clear from the start that they don't want to be fair. Unless you are paying lawyers 50k+ to help you, well you can waste your time but in the end it probably won't matter all that much.
nonplus
Sure, and I have stayed away from FAANG (MAMAA now?) for 15 years because of that. The position/work is such that I am interested in what my options are beyond the "Why bother" stance that I have held until this point.

Edit: I appreciate a response regardless. If I get an overwhelming amount of apathy in these responses that might just be a sign I should change my mind about the position.

encryptluks2
I understand that. You need to get your lawyers and their lawyers to come together then to draft a contract and have enough money ready to fight something if they breach on their end. That in itself is usually enough to avoid it.

If you want to proceed, remember you are dealing with people that don't care about being fair. You may have the mindset, hey I want to make this more fair for myself. They will have a mindset of, what can we do to make this person think this is fair but still exploit them to the fullest potential and make sure we are protected to the fullest extent possible.

tra3
Do you have the contract in hand and have you raised any of these issues with your recruiters?

Also where do you work? For example California has employee beneficial policies in this regard. Non-competes are not enforceable, and IP developed off company time belongs to the employee [0].

[0]: https://www.brightjourney.com/q/ownership-ip-developed-emplo...

nonplus
No contract in hand yet, I just recall loosely what it looked like from an offer a few years back, and what James Liu shared a few years back and want to be proactive this time around. I will see if I still have a copy I can reference (It may be vastly different, but it will be a good exercise). I'm not in California /'reasonable' non-competes have been upheld in my state.
b20000
there is a difference between a contractor and service provider. i found this out first hand. you don’t want to be a contractor because they will run you through HR and maybe an intermediary. tell them you only do this through a professional service agreement and that you have a corp and do not work through intermediaries. they can onboard you as a vendor. i do not understand why you also want to be employed at amazon. very unlikely to be able to negotiate that you can do consulting gigs on the side and want to keep your IP which you developed outside amazon.