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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...

The non-compete risk probably comes only with the star hires / client facing employees (risk of clients being lured to the other company).


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.


This is but one of many tactics employers will use to try to decrease their own employees' value on the open labor market.




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