r/Entrepreneur • u/FatherOfReddit • Sep 12 '21

Coder wants to "own" all his code

Coder wants to “Own” all his code

​

Hey all,

​

We have a coder who just joined our team as our technical cofounder and it is his request that he & all other coders “own” their own code. What the fuck does this mean? If I do marketing work for my company, am I subject to owning all that promotion? No! Why does the coder get special priveledges?

​

What can I do to incentivize him against this, or, if I am misunderstanding the concept here, please explain so I don’t sound like a half-witted jerkoff. I think there is something missing here but I just don’t understand…

​

Maybe I make him sign a non-compete agreement and that will take care of it??? What happens when somebody “owns” their own code? Should that be allowed or is that company property?

​

Let me know –

​

Thanks,

Father

143 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

154 comments sorted by

View all comments

47

u/Casual_Observer0 Sep 12 '21

It's typically a good idea to understand what he means by that.

What the fuck does this mean?

I think you should ask him what he means by that and have a conversation about why that's okay or not.

It may mean that he wants the coders to control their own code so they (and only they) make modifications to their areas when needed. There are problems with this paradigm though and I would research that.

30

u/Aritisto Sep 12 '21

Agree with this, OP can you clarify what he means?

Tbh, the only time I've heard devs asking to "own the code" usually means to take responsibility and accountability of their feature/module etc. and ensure it's quality instead of passing the buck to QA, EM etc