You might just ask an attorney to look it over. Seriously it would likely be a good $150-300 investment. I know in Florida where I am, non-competes are very f

You might just ask an attorney to look it over. Seriously it would likely be a good $150-300 investment. I know in Florida where I am, non-competes are very frowned upon in the legal system if they are too broad, overly prohibitive or for more than 2 years (in general). The key is an employer cannot prevent you from working in your field of expertise, and they cannot prevent you from using your knowledge to help others, except that they can hold you accountable not to disclose or utilize company specific knowledge. That is sometimes hard to define, but usually is the secret sauce that makes something unique. Also, this changes the higher up in the company management you go too, execs are treated different than say a developer would be. I had a company want me to sign a non-compete that said I wouldn't take any job where I would work with GPS, geographical systems, or location aware systems for a period of 4 years anywhere in the United States (this was a Florida Company). This was a firm involved with financial software for the lending industry. I just told them that 1, it is way to broad and I can't sign it, and 2, btw it isn't going to pass muster here in Florida because it is too prohibitive and way too broad not to mention too long. I had a good relationship with the company (and owner) so I felt comfortable telling them what I felt from having been involved in non-compete structure with my last company. What I did agree to is saying for a period of 12 months leaving their job I would not help any other financial software services firm develop a geographical based algorithm. I think in the end we settled on 18 months, but it worked out. Not being an attorney, I did go ask an attorney and paid for an hour of guidance and I did the negotiation to keep it non-confrontational. In fact, they never knew I talked to an attorney. Best couple hundred bucks I spent as I made good money on that contract.