Non-competes aren't there to be enforced, but to make the person stinky to future employers. A decent company will cover legal expenses and, in the extreme outlier case, judgments-- and an indecent one will fire you, but you probably won't get sued in either case. The effect of a non-compete on a star hire is relatively small, but if you're an entry-level engineer, the difference between $85,000 per year and $85,000 per year plus theoretically unbounded legal risk is huge.
Non-competes, non-solicits, and (except in a severance) non-disparagement clauses are shitty practices that deserve to die in a taint fire.
Except that the junior engineer's old company won't sue because he is just a junior engineer...
True in practice, but there is risk.
Plus, it's just a shitty conversation to be compelled to have when you're trying to convince someone to hire you. ("One last thing, I'm under this non-compete, so can I get a written agreement to cover legal costs?") An executive can probably get that protection. For a junior, that's a deal breaker. And typically, the vindictive or paranoid firm won't actually sue your next company, they'll just ask your new firm to fire you... and often (for low-level people like software engineers) they will.
Tech is diverse enough and "competition" generally amorphously-defined enough that junior engineers rarely get strung up on non-competes. It's more of an issue in finance.
The only time it happens in tech is when there's a deliberate attempt to destroy someone's reputation, like what a few people (none especially important) from Google tried to do after I left that place.
I think the winning strategy in this case is to conceal from your prospective employer that you're under a non-compete and hope for the best.
If your former company is not vindictive enough to send a copy of the form to your new employer, you win. If they are vindictive enough - you lose, but you would have lost if you told your prospective employer that you were bound by a non-compete anyway.
The mere fact that skilled workers need to contemplate such deceptive tactics as part of their everyday "pursuit of happiness" so that a business can enjoy some risk mitigation I think underlines that Hawaii is spot on in making non-competes outright illegal.
>>The only time it happens in tech is when there's a deliberate attempt to destroy someone's reputation, like what a few people (none especially important) from Google tried to do after I left that place.
That sucks, sorry. I agree it is an unnecessary complication for engineers which may or may not give companies any real protection.
Non-competes, non-solicits, and (except in a severance) non-disparagement clauses are shitty practices that deserve to die in a taint fire.