For 18 months past separating from Amazon, Amazon’s non-compete disallows employees from supporting the development of any product or service that competes with any product or service offered by Amazon. That would effectively prevent me from finding a job anywhere! I’m worried that a prospective employer wont be willing to hire me if I agree to this non-compete. Does anyone consider this a justifiable reason to reject any opportunity to work at Amazon?
If you are not comfortable, don’t sign it. Ask them modify non-compete to make it fair.
MS has similar language in many employment contracts as well. It's non-enforceable if you move to CA for a job though. Also very rarely enforced, only time it might be is if you move directly to a competing product, like if you work on AWS and then decide you want to go to Azure (and even then it's still unlikely to be enforced). Honestly don't sweat it IMO
Depends on your level and role. If you are L6 or below I wouldn’t worry. I have been told by lawyers that unless your work at Amazon was specifically related to the work in your new company (for example going from AWS to OCI as a developer for storage), AMZN cannot enforce the non-compete. If you are moving from AWS to say Netflix, which competes with Amazon’s Prime Video but not with AWS, then Amazon cannot enforce their non-compete.
Amazon is a shitty company. Stay away from that place.
I could use some referral at MS. I have several connections at amzn and am getting interviews, but MS recruiters don't get back to me that much.
Amazon's non-compete is almost unenforceable. No company can keep you from working, which this contract basically states. The only grey area is you develop a service at Amazon and then move to the exact same role working on the exact same service at a competing company
The scary thing is that Amazon’s non-compete literally says that it’s extremely broad, and that you as a employee nevertheless still agree to comply with it. So really, I have to be prepared to be unemployable (or under employed) for 18 months. That’s the downside. The upside is that experience at Amazon will open doors down the road. I suppose we take calculated risks like this all the time.
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