Worse than that, many companies have clauses that indicate that any software you write (regardless of whether for the company or not), belongs to them. I don’t know if this would hold up in court, but it’s there in the contract.
It’s pretty hard not to overlap with big tech companies. Everything has been touched internally.
My understanding is the same though. Unfortunately whether a clause is legal or not may matter little - you’ll run out of cash for legal bills before they do. The best defense is probably just that most companies don’t care about your side projects.
