Job offer non compete agreement

>>18627404
1/3

b) You recognize that your employment with Company affords you close contact with Company’s former, present and potential customers or clients. Contacts as well as access to information about them are of great importance to Company’s business. Therefore, in consideration of your being an employee of Company, you agree that for a period of 12 months after the termination, for any reason, of your employment with Company, you will not:

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>>18627406
2/3

1) personally engage in, or be employed by, consult with, or render services to, any Competing Business, either directly or indirectly (including individually or as a principal, shareholder, director, partner, employee, officer, agent or consultant). “Competing Business” means any entity or person engaged in or about to become or seeking to become engaged in research, development, production, marketing, or selling or a Competing Product(s). “Competing Product(s)” means product(s), or process(es) which compete directly or indirectly with Company’s product(s) or process(es), including any and all of Company’s products or processes that are still in development at the time of your departure.

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>>18627410
3/3

2) either directly or indirectly, either for yourself or any other person, firm, corporation or other form of business entity, call, solicit, entice, take away, canvas, divert or interfere with any former, current or prospective customer or client of Company with whom you had contact within 12 months of the termination of your employment, where the purpose of the contact with such former, current or prospective customer may be to, directly or indirectly, cease having that entity do business with Company or reduce the level of business that entity does with Company.

This all sounds like the standard legal jargon for the company to cover their ass. Just steer clear of anything in the same area for a year, and you're golden

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>>18627422
It is? It seems like it would prevent me from doing any work as a software developer for a full year. Am I reading it incorrectly?
Software development tends to have a pretty high turnover, most only stick around 2-3 years from what I've heard

Remember that you cannot sign away your rights. A lot of this is actually unenforceable and just standard scare tactics. They can't prevent you from making a living.

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>>18627404
Makes me a bit nervous, especially when taken with
1) They are super pushy about me starting right away
2) I've only been able to meet two people who work there - the owner and the recruiter
3) The entire process has moved extremely quickly - sending a resume to a job offer in under a week
4) The sign on bonus is to be repaid if I leave within two years, for any reason

Maybe I should have a lawyer take a look at this?

>>18627404
Noncompete clauses are becoming a lot more common nowadays.

It used to be limited to executives or senior level employees who could walk away with literally millions worth of insider knowledge and contacts.

Now they're slapping it onto lots of decent jobs but it's especially notorious in anything with IT or comp sci.

I wouldn't stress too much about it. They're not really enforceable for mid level workers because a judge is not going to rule in favor of a company if it risks putting you out on the street and collecting welfare.

That being said, don't be an idiot when or if you do switch jobs and advertise it to the whole world. Don't tell your former boss or his boss. When I was switching jobs from a noncompete I told my new employer but it was as an accountant from real estate to a tech company with 4 months left. Nothing happened. Just don't go working for the company that makes the exact same product or is in the same building and you'll be fine.

>>18627445
it can be interpreted to mean almost anything. if you accept this contract, you may very well be out of work for the duration

It really depends on how broad of a field you can work in. If you can be a software developer for other industries that don't compete with this company, you should have no issues. But if you're in a specialized industry (let's say development of human resources software) and that is your specialty then you could have a problem.

You could go to another company and this employer just needs to slap you with an injunction, which means YOU need to get a lawyer and fight it. That's time and money for you (money you won't have since you won't be working).

But courts have shot down a lot of non-competes so it may be worth having an attorney look at it. He hay be able to tell you that it's too broad to enforce or whether the company has narrowed it down to be totally enforceable.

As for the sign-on bonus, I'd look for two changes. First, it should be pro-rated so that the amount you pay back decreases the longer you stay. Second, I'd ask that it needs to be repaid only if you leave or are fired for cause. If they lay you off you should be able to keep the bonus.

>>18627404
>>18627406
>>18627410
>>18627414
It wouldn't hold up in court because it has no geographical limitations. This assumes you live in USA and I'm using California as my basis.

They can't just stop you from working anywhere in the world for a year and generally it's only used for things like doctors or manufacturing or something that relies heavily on client lists where geographical competition might actually cause them a big problem if you decide to just leave and take everything they taught you and use it to compete.

The best an IT company could really hope to pull off is a requirement that you don't go after their customers directly and you don't use any of their secrets to compete against them for a limited amount of time after you leave. MAYBE they could make you find employment a certain amount of miles away if they can prove it makes a difference.

As a lawyer turned business man, I can tell you that most contracts people throw at you aren't actually understood by the company giving it. A lawyer told them it would cover them and they usually believe it without investigating further for reasonableness or fairness.

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Thanks for the advice anons.
From what I've read, it seems like it would be unenforceable as it's too broad.
I'm in Iowa btw. This company does consulting & dev work for other, larger companies.

I'm going to have a lawyer take a look at it. #1 rule is CYA, $300 is a pretty cheap way to do that