Engagement terms

Last updated: 26 September 2026

These terms describe how I contract, deliver and invoice engineering work. They apply to all services offered on this site unless a signed contract with a client states otherwise.

1. Who you are contracting with

I contract as an independent business (B2B). I am not an employee, agent or representative of any client, and no engagement creates an employment relationship, partnership or joint venture.

2. How I work

• Own resources. I supply my own computer equipment, development tooling and software licences. I do not depend on client-provided workplace infrastructure beyond the access strictly required to deliver the agreed scope (for example repository and environment credentials).
• No subordination. Clients define what is to be achieved: the objective, scope and acceptance criteria. I decide how it is achieved: technical approach, tooling, sequencing and working method. I do not receive or issue binding instructions of the kind an employer issues to an employee.
• No exclusivity. I run several client engagements in parallel, engineering contracts alongside the website clients of my studio, studio.mackan.pl, and remain free to take on new clients at any time during an engagement.
• Own time and place. I decide when and where the work is done. Dates fixed in the contract, such as milestone reviews, release windows or workshops, are points in the engagement, not working hours, and I am not subject to a client's attendance records or leave approval.
• Substitution. Where a contract permits it, I may perform work with the support of my own subcontractors, remaining fully responsible to the client for the result.

3. Contract status and the 2026 labour-inspection reform

Under Polish law, work done under the conditions of an employment relationship is employment, whatever the contract is called (Art. 22 §1¹ of the Labour Code). Since 8 July 2026 the National Labour Inspectorate (Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy, PIP) can act on that itself: an inspector first orders the parties to conclude an employment contract, and if the order is not followed, the regional labour inspector can establish the employment relationship by administrative decision, subject to appeal to the labour court.

An inspector examines how the work is actually carried out, so section 2 describes practice, not paperwork. If an engagement starts to drift from it, for example towards fixed working hours, instructions on how rather than what, or a place in the client's staff processes, either party raises it and the scope or the contract is corrected before work continues.

On request, I confirm in writing how a given engagement meets section 2, for the client's own records. A client that wants certainty about its contracting model can also ask the Chief Labour Inspector (Główny Inspektor Pracy) for an individual interpretation.

4. Engagement model

Every engagement is defined before it starts and records, as a minimum: the scope of work, the deliverables, the acceptance criteria, the milestone schedule, the fee and the end date. Work outside the agreed scope is handled as a separate, separately priced change.

Engagements are outcome-based. I am paid for delivered and accepted results, not for time spent being available.

5. Deliverables and acceptance

Deliverables are handed over at the milestones set out in the contract. The client has an agreed review window to accept a deliverable or report defects against the acceptance criteria. Silence past the review window counts as acceptance.

6. Fees and invoicing

Fees are agreed per engagement: fixed price per milestone, fixed price per deliverable, or a capped project fee. I invoice from mackan.it Maciej Kankowski against accepted milestones. Standard payment term is 14 days from the invoice date unless agreed otherwise. Prices are net; VAT is added at the applicable statutory rate.

7. Warranty, risk and liability

• 7.1 Warranty. I warrant that accepted deliverables conform to the agreed acceptance criteria.
• 7.2 Remediation at my cost. Defects reported within the warranty period are corrected at my own expense and in my own time.
• 7.3 Economic risk. I bear the economic risk of my work: fixed-price work that takes longer than estimated is not re-billed, and rework caused by my error is not chargeable.
• 7.4 Cap. Unless mandatory law provides otherwise, my aggregate liability under an engagement is limited to the fees paid under that engagement.

8. Intellectual property

Economic copyright in deliverables created specifically for a client transfers to that client upon full payment for the relevant milestone, on the fields of exploitation set out in the contract. I retain rights to pre-existing components, generic tooling and know-how developed independently of the engagement, and grant the client a licence to use them as embedded in the deliverables.

Parts of a deliverable produced with AI tools are handed over on the same terms, to the extent that rights in them exist: Polish copyright protects the results of human creative work, so a purely generated fragment may carry none.

9. Confidentiality

Client information disclosed to me is kept confidential and used solely to deliver the engagement. Client names on this site are generalised by industry where an NDA is in force.

10. AI in delivery (EU AI Act)

I use AI tools, such as Claude Code, as part of my working method, which makes me a deployer of those tools under Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the AI Act. Engineering work is not a high-risk use under that regulation, and every engagement follows these rules:

• My tools, the client's safeguards. Which AI tools I use is my decision, like the rest of my tooling (section 2). Client code and data go only into tools whose terms meet the client's confidentiality and security requirements: no training on client data, plus any data-location or approval rule the client's security policy sets for access to its systems.
• A person answers for the output. I review every AI-assisted change before it is delivered, and it carries the same warranty (section 7) as the rest of the work.
• Clear roles. When I set up AI workflows for a client's team, the client is the deployer of those systems. My work supports the AI-literacy duty that the AI Act places on it (Art. 4): written principles, a shared configuration with guardrails, and training for the people who use it.
• Limits. I do not build systems for practices prohibited by Art. 5. If an engagement involves an AI system in a high-risk area listed in Annex III, such as recruitment, worker evaluation or task allocation, its classification and the obligations that follow are agreed in writing before work starts.

This website

No AI system on this site interacts with you or makes decisions about you: there is no chatbot, no AI-driven personalisation and no profiling. The text is mine. I use AI tools while drafting it, as I do in engineering work, and I review, edit and take responsibility for everything that is published. Most reading notes in /docs are AI-drafted, and the listing says so.

11. Term and termination

Engagements run for the term set out in the contract. Either party may terminate on the notice period agreed there. On termination, accepted and delivered work is invoiced and paid; no notice-period entitlement, severance, leave compensation or comparable employment-type benefit arises.

12. Governing law

Polish law applies. Disputes are subject to the court having jurisdiction over my registered seat, unless the contract provides otherwise.

13. Contact

Questions about these terms: use the contact details on the homepage. See also the privacy and cookie policy.