u/Imaginary-Ground-259

I’m reviewing an employment contract for a DevOps / systems engineering role and noticed an indemnity clause where the employee indemnifies the employer against “liabilities, claims, costs, damages, expenses and losses incurred by or made against the Employer by reason of any breach of this Agreement.”

This struck me as quite broad, especially for an employee rather than a contractor/consultant. I asked a lawyer to review it, and they suggested narrowing it to something like:

>The Employee shall indemnify the Employer only for a material breach of the Agreement resulting from the Employee’s wilful misconduct, fraud, or gross negligence, with the opportunity to respond to allegations, and excluding indirect, consequential, or unforeseeable losses.

They also suggested that recovery of damages should be limited to direct, proven and quantifiable damages, subject to applicable law, statutory limitations, and no salary deductions or financial penalties unless permitted by law or expressly agreed/authorised.

For people in DevOps, SRE, systems engineering, security, or similar roles:

How common is this kind of indemnity clause in employment contracts?

Would you consider the original wording a red flag?

Have you seen employers agree to narrow these clauses to wilful misconduct, fraud, or gross negligence only?

I’m not asking for legal advice here — I already have a lawyer involved — I’m more trying to understand whether this is normal in the industry or unusually broad.

EDIT: added the lawyer ammendment

I’m reviewing an employment contract for a DevOps / systems engineering role and noticed an indemnity clause where the employee indemnifies the employer against “liabilities, claims, costs, damages, expenses and losses incurred by or made against the Employer by reason of any breach of this Agreement.”

This struck me as quite broad, especially for an employee rather than a contractor/consultant. I asked a lawyer to review it, and they suggested narrowing it to something like:

>The Employee shall indemnify the Employer only for a material breach of the Agreement resulting from the Employee’s wilful misconduct, fraud, or gross negligence, with the opportunity to respond to allegations, and excluding indirect, consequential, or unforeseeable losses.

They also suggested that recovery of damages should be limited to direct, proven and quantifiable damages, subject to applicable law, statutory limitations, and no salary deductions or financial penalties unless permitted by law or expressly agreed/authorised.

For people in DevOps, SRE, systems engineering, security, or similar roles:

How common is this kind of indemnity clause in employment contracts?

Would you consider the original wording a red flag?

Have you seen employers agree to narrow these clauses to wilful misconduct, fraud, or gross negligence only?

I’m not asking for legal advice here — I already have a lawyer involved — I’m more trying to understand whether this is normal in the industry or unusually broad.

EDIT: Forgot to add the lawyer ammendment.

Hi everyone,

I received a draft indefinite employment contract for an EU-based tech/iGaming DevOps-type role and wanted a general sanity check on a few clauses, whether they are common locally.

I’m not naming the company, and I’m not looking for legal advice, just general experience from people who have worked in EU tech/iGaming.

Points I’m wondering about:

• Contract mentions 40h/week “according to team rotation”, but I was told verbally there is no formal official on-call. Is this wording common?

• There is a broad indemnity clause saying the employee indemnifies the employer for liabilities/costs/losses from breach of the agreement, even mentioning "fines." Is that standard wording in EU employment contracts, or something to push back on?

I’m mainly trying to understand what’s standard vs what’s worth clarifying before signing.

Any recommendations for lawyer firms which are best suited to review employment contracts (from the employee side)?