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Comment by majewsky | Hacker News Reader

Here's a problem with audition projects: I would never be able to take part in one, since my current job contract has a clause forbidding me from simultaneously working for any competitor in the same field. (This is a German job contract; I don't know if such clauses are common in the US or elsewhere, too.)

So in order to work on an audition project, I'd have to be unemployed already.

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Those clauses are really hard to enforce generally. They're effectively restraint of trade. Your time not working for your employer is your time. Your employer is on dodgy ground specifying what you can do in it. At least that's the interpretation most places I've worked (UK and Australia). Germany may be different.

But specifically if you were taking an interview rather than working a side job you could make the argument that the clause didn't apply in any case.

It all comes down to how much you pissed off your ex-employer by leaving, and how much they want revenge. No-one is going to gain anything from suing you after you've moved jobs.

Talk with your solicitor. A lot of companies like to include such clauses in contracts even if they're not legally enforceable, particularly in the case of US companies operating in a country with relatively strong workers' rights like Germany.

It's a German company, and my previous employer (a German SME) had a similar clause, so it's likely not just them.

I agree with other posters that same-field is usually going to be blocked anyway. I've had non-competes at 2 of my 3 jobs which would prevent me from working at any competitor in the industry for X years after quitting anway.

But my current work contract has an anti-moonlighting clause that could also be a problem. It states that I can't have other demands on my time that would interfere with my day job. Now, I interpret that as meaning I can do side projects that have no deadline and just be luxuriously slow and lazy at making progress on them. But for an audition project I probably wouldn't be able to take it that slow.

I'm in the US and it'd be a breach of contract for me as well.

Unless it's not a competitor in the same filed.

Generally, I've come to believe that the 'field' that a company specifies they're in is intentionally left vague. I would assume that most people looking for a new job would more likely than not look for something in a similar industry, and be, in fact, infringing on such clauses if they did audition project work for other employers in said industry.

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