

Legality/ethics of working for a competitor - throwaway9764

After taking a year off to (unsuccessfully) explore creating my own startup, I am looking to return to the job market.  I used to work in a startup and am debating the ethics and legality for working for a competitor in the same space.  Since I have been away for awhile, my knowledge should be a little out of date so I am not too worried about accidentally tipping off the new company about my old company's plans.  However, since I worked at the company for many years since its early stages as a part of a small dev team, I have a lot of knowledge of the full architecture and of the design tradeoffs that were considered along the way.<p>FYI, I am in California, so at least some legal aspects favor me.  I also had a good working relationship with my old company (and left on good terms) and worry a bit how switching to a competitor might affect that relationship.
======
andymoe
It's been a year. Those unenforceable non-competes usually last about that
long as do the terms baring you from poaching old colleagues. I'd pay the
couple hundred bucks to have my attorney review my previous contract while I
was negotiating my new improved salary (you have domain experience...) at the
competitor if it seems like the right fit.

Begin rant: This is business. I don't know why people in tech seem to forget
that so often and feel like they owe previous or existing employers something
special beyond the time an effort they are paying for. You don't owe them
anything more. Maybe it's because tech is filled with younger folks who have
yet to be screwed over or treated like a resource to be used and profited from
and don't know better. In other industries people move firms AND take their
entire client list with them all the time.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Late to the table but completely agree here - think of yourself as a one
person business, not an employee, and these issues become much clearer

------
edent
If you work in a specific industry (web design, car sales, kitchen cleaning)
then by definition almost every company in that sector is a competitor.

Except in some very limited fields, there's no problem at all with this.

No one commented on the ethics of Marissa Mayer going from Google to Yahoo,
did they? Why should it be any different for you?

If you worked in a highly specialised or regulated field and had signed a
contract with an onerous "non-compete" clause, that'd be different. Check with
a lawyer - not HN.

