I don't understand why people assume it's scamming or cheating. It's perfectly legal, and I'd say it's even good for country economy.

The employer might state that "it's our mutual understanding" about anything in job offer, but it's not a legally binding statement. Anti-competitive statements can be binding, though, so it might be illegal for them to work at FB and Google, as their business might intersect. But it's a different story than just right to hold two "full-time" jobs.

One possibility I might think of -- if an employee is really a high performer, but couldn't negotiate compensation above "market price" for their level.

I've been doing this for 2 years, except I have 3 positions not two.

Also all 3 pay really well, but they are all small companies (less than 20 employees). All three are distributed teams with no offices.

I learned a long time ago when I was assigned a task, if I concentrated I could get my days work done in 2/3 hours, sometimes less. If it was a large task that was supposed to take a month, I could do it in two weeks.

I dont believe this is because Im special in any way, I just think people slack off and generally lose too much time at work.

Obviously I didn't start with 3, I had 1 and noticed I had a lot of downtime and applied and was selected for a second job. At first I was very nervous I had taken on too much, but after a few weeks it became clear I could finish both in about 6 hours a day.

I then added the third, and usually I can finish everything in 8/9 hours. Ive gotten into trouble a few times where things piled up and I had to work all through the weekend, but its rare.

Its also happened where I finish all my works' week by Wednesday and have Thursday and Friday pretty much off.

I dont get into trouble with meetings because all 3 jobs dont have that many (1 or 2 per week) and since the teams are distributed theres always some room for scheduling effectively.

At one point I even got a 4th job, that immediately was too much and I resigned after a week.

Final note, I see nothing immoral about this. I want to make money and keep busy, if I end up paying the price by pulling some all nighters or long weekends I accept that, and have done it.

In all three positions I get positive reviews and even raises.

(this is not my real HN account, I created it just to share this story without divulging my identity)

This is sort of brag, but it's also sort of funny if you know my brother: he both works for a high profile think tank and a high profile consulting firm full time remotely. He's also running a charity org in his free(?) time.

It's hilarious too because despite how impressive that sounds he is the most ADHD and scatterbrained person I know. He is incapable of any sort of organization in his life. I think he manages his dysfunction by channeling his hyperfocus into his work.

I have ADHD too, and it's unfortunate that my brain seems to want to channel my hyperfocus into arguing about random things on social media instead.

1. There is not enough information in the original tweet to determine if this person is working full-time at either company or part-time. Both companies employ enough contractors.

2. As other comments said, this might not be ethical but may still be legal. Full-time employees are not hourly, and as long as they do their job hours shouldn't matter.

3. If in California, there is no non-compete.

4. Due to it being FB and Google, they can get into trouble from an IP standpoint of they leak or use IP from one at the other.

5. Logistics can be interesting. But it is certainly possible for a person to claim they are remote from different timezones at each company to minimize conflicts.

6. Still I can't see how they can continue this for long if friend of friend already knows about this. Someone in there social circle will get jealous and report them.

Seems legit. /s

"Friend of a friend" - nothing suspicious there, it must be true. "Might have reversed the co's" - yup, might or might not, 100% true story. edit: And a bit further down the thread: "I don't know him."

In some remote case this is true, 2 full-time contracts can be downright illegal to have. And tax office might be very interested at the end of the year.

It's normal if you work two blue collar jobs but two programming jobs and now people in here saying they should be investigated by the IRS, c'mon what are you doing. And this tweet, if true, what a weird way to snitch on someone trying to work.

In defense of this hypothetical employee (who may or may not exist) I would give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn't go in to this thinking "I'm going to work 2 jobs" but rather:

- Interviewed at the other company, and received an offer

- Took time away from main job to start new job, with the intention of resigning after his onboarding (just in case)

- Came back and wanted to clean a few things up before resigning.

- Kept doing that

- Realized everything was fine and never quit

Not saying it doesn't still have issues, but it's easy to see how someone with "normal" intentions could have slowly ended up in this situation.

Aside from the legality, what does this say about whatever role the friend was doing (assuming this is true of course)? I've heard from friends who work at FAANG that it's fairly easy to hide in the bureaucracy and do no real work. I've also heard the opposite, but perhaps the widely varying experiences are to be expected at a large company.

I knew a guy years ago who after catching wind of mass layoffs went and got another job without notice to his current employer. Then he just came back to his old office for three months and worked from his new corporate laptop and even took remote conference meetings until eventually getting laid off (with huge severance) along with everybody else.

MA: > Oh yes. A lot of people have zero social media in tech. I look forward to the day I can delete all this bullshit .

I like this quote.

Isn't this kind of work the kind we should expect as more and more people are working remotely? More of them will choose to go with gig work / independent work in order to arbitrage if they can do it, particularly the good ones. If implemented correctly this could be a huge boon to workers, and will take some powers away from employers.

"They didn’t call him Steve Job."

had to share that...

I find it ironic that so many people are arguing about the morality and ethics of working 2 full time jobs when he's working at companies that have shown repeatedly they lack morality and ethics.

It's not illegal to have two jobs, but usually for a FTE salaried job, you employment agreement says must tell your employer about any other jobs you have, including part time and hourly. A big reason why companies don't want you to have another tech job is that you might not really being doing either job, you outsource one or both of them. That breaks confidentiality laws when you give your subcontractor access to documents, data, source code, names of your coworkers, etc.

For those saying it is not illegal, not so fast. If they lied to the second employer to get the second job (such as by saying that they had no other jobs or were quitting their other jobs) that may be fraud in some jurisdictions.

It's also very risky in terms of civil liability. If either employer introduces a product that comes anywhere near to something they worked on at the other employer, that other employer may sue the employee alleging trade secret theft.

That's a civil matter, not a criminal matter. Mostly, being civil not criminal is good for a defendant...but there is one important area where it isn't. That's the burden of proof. Prosecutors in criminal cases have to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt". Plaintiffs in civil cases just have to meet either "preponderance of the evidence" in most cases, and "clear and convincing" in a few.

I'm not fully sure, but I believe a trade secret appropriation suit would use "preponderance of the evidence". That's also known as "more likely than not". Working at plaintiff on stuff anywhere close to the allegedly misappropriated trade secret will be enough to to meet that for plaintiff, effectively shifting the burden of proof on the employee to prove that they did not supply the other employer with the trade secret.

The plaintiff would almost certainly sue the other employer too, not just the employee. If the plaintiff wins that suit, that other employer might sue the employer asking them to pay any damages they owe from that suit.

This would not be pleasant for the employee.

Do Google/FB have an agreement clause to only work at one job?

Seems like if you didn't agree to be exclusive, you should be able to do this as long as the work is getting done.

Regardless as to whether this is legal, and assuming this is indeed true, I'm just curious - one of these jobs the person is probably phoning it in a little bit more than the other. Does anyone have insight here?

Austen definitely has an opinion: https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1311530531725602816

“A friend of a friend” is a standard signal that what is being repeated is a rumor, of which the speaker has no personal knowledge, often an urban legend.

Given that both organizations treat complying with legal and contractual obligations as a risk management exercise, I see no problem with their employees doing the same. It sounds like the subject of the story did the analysis, determined that the potential downsides aren't really that bad (for him/her/them), and acted accordingly.

If it's even true at all.

If true, that would be fascinating, and for a lot of companies (like if you did e-mail support) there would be nothing illegal about it -- you just don't want to be discovered.

But I'm legitimately curious about the ramifications of IP here -- both Google and (I'm assuming) Facebook claim to own all your intellectual output related to their business areas.

So you've basically just signed ownership of all your work for both companies to both Facebook and Google. IANAL, so I don't know what the term for this would be, but it does seem like you'd get in trouble -- fraud?

I assume you'd somehow slip eventually and get caught, and likely be sued by both companies, with an incredible headache for both companies' sets of lawyers as they try to figure out what to do with the code you committed, and if they can even use it anymore at all.

I wonder what Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have to say about this!

I heard a legend of someone who, through acquisitions and lax work-from-home auditing, actually held two positions at the same employer. By working for different international subsidiaries and using different spellings of his name, he got away with it for years.

>Michael Arrington >I don’t feel like I have any responsibility to protect him here.

Hey anonymous programmer dude scamming the big COs, the friend of your friend is your for reals enemy!

For me, that just shows "Something went wrong" and doesn't load the tweet content.

Tried reloading the page a few times, same problem.

I heard that it is very hard to slack off at FB with design meetings. And that even many Xooglers were put on PIP at FB.

Everything is possible in the stories of "friend of friend of friend". Just like those fakirs who mastered climbing ropes!! Evidence: my friend said so, etc.

Tried this, was very stressful. It messes with your brain. Even though I've recovered after a year or so, my shortterm memory isn't what it used to be after that. So, beware.

Why? Why would someone do that? Does Hell have a VIP area?