3 ms·

Every company that is based on california, or that employs you in california, is better. No matter what the non-compete says, if you're in CA, you can use your

Every company that is based on california, or that employs you in california, is better. No matter what the non-compete says, if you're in CA, you can use your own hardware and non-work time to develop anything that doesn't directly compete with your employer/dayjob and doesn't use trade secrets/IP from the company. Amazon though is mostly based in Washington, where no such law exists, so sweeping non-competes are legal. The above is the reason that there is a difference between various FAANG companies. Even if the company policy requires you to get approval, if it really isn't a work-related piece of code, you can simply tell them to pound sand and CA will have your back.

quantumwannabe 8y ago
This is misleading. While non-competes are enforceable in Washington, employers can not force employees to sign away the rights to inventions produced on their own time without employer resources. Compare https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=49.44.140 https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=49.44.140 to the equivalent CA law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=2870 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... . It's essentially the same wording.
- brlewis 8y ago
  Isn't "invention" a patent term? Not all creative work is invention.
saagarjha 8y ago
> No matter what the non-compete says, if you're in CA, you can use your own hardware and non-work time to develop anything that doesn't directly compete with your employer/dayjob and doesn't use trade secrets/IP from the company. What if you work for a company that happens to have a stake in basically every field of technology?
- rectang 8y ago
  This is one of two reasons why I work for a small company, and also why I left another small company when it was acquired by a large company -- CA 2870 only offers meaningful protection when your employer isn't active in the relevant field of endeavor. I don't want to compete with my employer, I just want to write some sound software on my own time and to maintain my ability to contribute in open source administration. It offends me that the state of the industry is such that I'm expected to sign away my soul on taking any software development job. (The other main reason I won't work for a big is that I don't want to work 40 hours each week but the bigs won't budge on that.)
deleted 8y ago
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quantumwannabe 8y ago

This is misleading. While non-competes are enforceable in Washington, employers can not force employees to sign away the rights to inventions produced on their own time without employer resources. Compare https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=49.44.140 https://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=49.44.140 to the equivalent CA law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=2870 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... . It's essentially the same wording.

brlewis 8y ago
Isn't "invention" a patent term? Not all creative work is invention.

saagarjha 8y ago

> No matter what the non-compete says, if you're in CA, you can use your own hardware and non-work time to develop anything that doesn't directly compete with your employer/dayjob and doesn't use trade secrets/IP from the company. What if you work for a company that happens to have a stake in basically every field of technology?

rectang 8y ago
This is one of two reasons why I work for a small company, and also why I left another small company when it was acquired by a large company -- CA 2870 only offers meaningful protection when your employer isn't active in the relevant field of endeavor. I don't want to compete with my employer, I just want to write some sound software on my own time and to maintain my ability to contribute in open source administration. It offends me that the state of the industry is such that I'm expected to sign away my soul on taking any software development job. (The other main reason I won't work for a big is that I don't want to work 40 hours each week but the bigs won't budge on that.)

deleted 8y ago

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