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> Engineers are the worst at this part of the game. They'll sign anything you put in front of them.

The smart ones absolutely will not. Smart people absolutely will not do this, regardless of their profession.

But that's the ultimate cop-out. By sheer definition smart people will not do anything stupid. They are utterly incapable of doing stupid things, because then they wouldn't be smart. This is a wonderful tautology and a beautiful way of saying absolutely nothing.

Once you internalize tautologies you see them eeeeeverywhere. sadly.

It's just a way of saying "doing X is stupid" without being blunt.

I don't agree. I've worked with some very smart engineers and scientists who simply do not inform themselves about things that are outside their domain.

> who simply do not inform themselves about things that are outside their domain.

And hopefully have the self-awareness not to have strongly held opinions in these areas (at least without sufficient evidence). However, I find that all too often, this is not the case.

That's a dangerous and reductive line of thinking. There are plenty of factors that can lead people to believe (correctly or no) that they don't have leverage in an employment negotiation. First job out of school, first job in the tech industry, family causing them to want to stay in an area without many other prospects, etc; NDAs are an employers way of leaning hard on the fact you need them a lot more than they need you.

Yup. Often times it's not a matter of whether or not they're "smart" or "self-aware", like I see being argued. It's just a matter of not feeling confident enough to demand more. This holds especially true for engineers I've met in the games industry. The games industry treats their engineers so poorly in terms of compensation that often when I encourage my friends in the games industry to demand more, they're often afraid to because they believe they'll have their job offer rescinded for demanding more.

There are lawyers who do this type of negotiation.

> HR/hiring people will look at you like you're some kind of weirdo if you balk at any of it. Here are the reactions to my reluctance as I recall them.

Right. Go over them. Your lawyer will talk to their lawyers, above the level of the HR people you would be talking to.

> I didn't want a contractual responsibility to come and defend patents in courts,

Which is a pretty reasonable requirement...

> or give depositions at my expense.

But that is not (or, rather, it can be in certain circumstances).

A good lawyer will negotiate these things for you. You should try to find one who actually understands software a bit. They do exist.

Disclaimer: I am not your lawyer. If you need a lawyer, you should get one.

>But that is not (or, rather, it can be in certain circumstances)

If they're 3/3 with dodging it, what makes it unreasonable? Have they just been lucky so far?

Who is dodging what now? (Not trying to be facetious -forgive me, I'm just not really following.)

When I was dropping out of college because I'd run out of money, I didn't have money to hire an attorney to negotiate an entry level tech/engineering job for me.

>Which is a pretty reasonable requirement...

You omitted the last part. I think it's pretty unreasonable to want that kind of service gratis.

I crossed out all the non-compete clauses on the contract I signed for my last job and they were fine with it.

It's really no different than negotiating on salary or anything else - you just have to know your own value and the current job market climate. And obviously not being afraid of having a frank discussion about it - perhaps a lot of devs are non-confrontational in that way.