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Comment by hvidgaard | Hacker News Reader

Part of me is saying that while the guy was screwed over by SoundCloud, he simply didn't cover his bases in the contract.

There is simply no way I'd sign a contract that requires me to quit my job, let my accomodation go, move to a different country, without some clause about compensation for termination.

It may seem obvious now, but I always require 3 months of pay from the last day of employment - this is in effect from the moment they sign the contract, so they can cancel it all they want, but they still have to pay me 3 months of salery. If they don't want to sign on that, I don't consider it a serious offer anyway. This is only for jobs in a city where the jobs are plenty. For moving to Berlin it'd have to be higher.

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I agree, but I think it is incredibly uncommon for people to think critically about employment contracts in Tech. People generally just take whatever "standard" contract they receive at whatever small-mid-large size company, and I would guess that most don't even read them all the way through.

Even as someone who likes to think that they consider contracts carefully, I recently signed a contract with a 12-month (!!!) non complete cause. Clearly I don't think critically enough about employment contracts either. It's so hard to know things like this without experience, and there aren't enough people spreading (this kind) of knowledge.

I heard once from a German boss of mine, that these non-compete clauses are anyway illegal in Germany ;-)

Oh yeah I was going to add that (but didn't think it was relevant) -- they're very un-enforcable (and a lot of the time illegal) in a lot of places (including where I am). I'm going to stick to it, though, for a few reasons:

1) I did sign it, and maybe a little bit of suffering will go a long way to helping me remember this lesson forever (and read contracts more critically).

2) I have almost 0 interest in the space the company was in.

3) I'm confident I can make a living without working in that space for a year.

Uh oh, but the non-compete clause is for an industry, e.g. You can't go from BMW to Audi, or from SoundCloud to Apple Music ;-) It doesn't mean you can't work for anybody for a year, LOL :D That one would be 100% illegal, nobody can force you to be unemployed for a year :-D

FWIW under German contract law, even in the case you describe the clause is only valid if you receive a compensation for as long as the non-compete is in effect.

s/space/industry/g

yeah I meant the industry, I don't really mind not working in any related company for a year :D

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