Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the U.S. on an L1B visa

Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by kube-system on Sunday June 14, 2020 @10:50AM (#23518032)

Even in the states where these agreements are enforceable, they usually only are enforceable for a job in the same role, a competitive business, and the same physical location. I worked for a company for about a decade with an agreement like this; the people who left usually got out of it by lying about where they're going, working remotely for a while, or getting their next employer to change their title.

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by xrd on Sunday June 14, 2020 @10:59AM (#23518114)

That's interesting. At first glance, I thought you were suggesting "just switch roles completely!" But, you aren't saying that, you are saying the new employer just needs to be clever in creating a role with a different name.

But, then again, for some roles a public presence is needed, like public speaking. You can't temporarily have the role of "janitor" and go out and speak authoritatively about AWS at a conference with that role. Maybe people will get the joke after understanding the true state of these agreements.

Wait, do we even have conferences anymore?

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by kube-system on Sunday June 14, 2020 @11:19AM (#23518299)

> You can't temporarily have the role of "janitor" and go out and speak authoritatively about AWS at a conference with that role.

It is my understanding that you can often get away with being a lot more subtle than that. Things like throwing a proprietary product name in your title, a title that sounds more like a manager, etc.

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by chilukrn on Sunday June 14, 2020 @12:18PM (#23518906)

Not "AWS specialist" to janitor, but AWS to "cloud deployment engineer" or simply "member of technical staff "

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by swyx on Sunday June 14, 2020 @11:18AM (#23518286)

lying is just never a good strategy. everyone talks.

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by kube-system on Sunday June 14, 2020 @11:46AM (#23518531)

Maybe. Are you important enough to get administrative attention after you're gone, or does your HR department only care as much as they have to complete their offboarding checklist?

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by stale2002 on Sunday June 14, 2020 @03:04PM (#23520357)

People may talk, but the reality is that nobody is listening.

Companies are not sending private detectives, to follow engineers to their new job, and finding out specifically what they are working on, and if the contract is enforceable or not.

Mostly, people just forget about you, once you leave. People get away with lying all the time.

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by goodcanadian on Sunday June 14, 2020 @02:09PM (#23519839)

I forget the details because, frankly, it had no impact on me, but at one company, I remember a new executive simply not being able to fulfill some of the duties of his new role for several months until his non-compete expired. If the company wants you bad enough, they will find a way to make it work.

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by djsumdog on Sunday June 14, 2020 @11:26AM (#23518349)

But you don't want to ever be put in that position.

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