PostHog looks for passion in the people it hires. This often correlates with people who do things like public speaking or have side projects as a hobby. For example, we view pre-existing open source work as a strong qualifier that you're good enough at programming that it's fun to do rather than frustrating and hard!
These side gigs may sometimes earn you money. Sometimes, you may one day want your side gig to become your main gig.
We have deliberately called them "side gigs", as we are ok with you earning money on the side. We are not ok with this being your main focus and PostHog being just a paycheck. Quite simply, we are too small for PostHog not to be your main motivation.
Managing time
The key distinction to something being a side gig, and thus it being appropriate, is its impact on your work and the amount of time involved.
A few hours a month on a paid side gig is acceptable. Over 10 hours a week on a paid or open source side gig is a significant amount of extra work which we would expect to start impacting your performance.
If you are doing paid speaking, make it clear that you work for us, and the exception based on time does not apply - we view this as a great way to get PostHog's name out there.
In a few cases, you may want your side gig to become your full time work one day. That is ok - please just let us know, so we can create a plan. We will try to match you with tasks at PostHog that will help your long term goals, while not impacting your work performance, and will create a timeframe for you that works. We know the key to motivated people is to help you achieve your long term goals, and to align this with what PostHog needs, whether or not you eventually achieve them with us.
Above everything else, if you are going above and beyond for PostHog and you're still able to look after yourself properly, side gigs (whether paid or unpaid) are totally fine. We don't think that's possible beyond a certain level of time/energy commitment to them, but we are very happy for you to spend a little time on them each week.
Intellectual property
Just to reassure you, PostHog won't try to claim ownership of any intellectual property (IP) you create in your personal time, e.g. if you are contributing to another open source project as a hobby. However, you need to be really careful that you do not introduce any of PostHog's non-open source IP into any project that you work on - this can cause serious legal headaches. As a rule, anything from PostHog that is explicitly MIT-licensed is fine to use, anything else is not.
If you are ever worried about this, please talk to Charles and he can help you figure out the best solution here.
Getting signoff
We ask you to please just check in with the relevant Exec team member for your team (ie. James, Tim, or Charles) to get their confirmation before going ahead with any side gigs.
If your side gig existed before you joined PostHog, this will usually be covered as part of the interview process.