If he really is coding 90% of the time though, more power to him.
Then the question is only whether it's legal (contractually) to be employed by more than one employer at a time. But to that... would it be legal for a company to own every waking hour rather than just your employed hours?
I've not seen anything that says someone has to be exclusively hired, but they would need to be able to fully do their job for their employed time and surely that's all that matters.
Getting sued is not getting convicted of something.
Anti-moonlighting clauses are nonsense.
If they can do it, why not the plebs?
How do you think society would work if there was no restriction on the size of the group that is allowed to break the laws for their own benefit?! Imagine the horror if all plebs were allowed to do that! Could everyone live in Monaco or what?
The categorical imperative deserves to stay in the dustbin of history.
It’s not illegal, just highly unethical. It’s also not true, he does not know someone doing this.
It's funny, when this topic comes up, the people that are juggling multiple jobs are usually stuck in this weird place where they want to convince people it's true but at the same time not draw too much attention to it (for obvious reasons).
And a lot of this comes from people who are far less wordly than they think they are. Like there are people that genuinely believe that no one in security makes more than $200k except CISOs.
I understand it's entirely possible to juggle two remote jobs, I just don't think it's nearly as common as people claim or think, which is why it's an easy lie to make. It's got nothing to do with the total salaries involved, and everything to do with the exceedingly rare nature of the claim.
I don't see the ethical quandaries though. So long as one is doing the work promised, and the company is satisfied with their output. It's not any more unethical than working on any other side project after hours.
Sure, if you lose you probably just end up paying money. But lots of "real" crimes have punishments that amount to paying some fines but no jail time.
In your example, the "ethical" way to violate a non-compete is to redact it from the original contract.
I'm not saying you're the worst person ever, but littering is unethical, and so is saying you'll do something and then not doing it (or vice versa).
I'm sure you're thinking "but we're talking about software jobs where people have a lot more choice and bargaining power", which is definitely the case, hence why I mentioned that it depends on the company. On the most unethical end of contract violation I'd put the small startup that treats its people right and on the other end I'd put Walmart.
What the person in your Jimmy Johns example has is the ability to seek work elsewhere.
They are indeed acting unethically if they choose to work at Jimmy Johns, knowing what Jimmy Johns requires of its employees, then proceed to quit and then go work at Subway.
I'm concerned you're considering "acting unethically" as a kind of condemnation. It's not. Life happens, and nobody's being sent to the stockade for acting unethically, but that is what you're doing when you violate a contract.
I would add that ethics is an entire branch of philosophy, so you know, there's so ambiguity between different folks' definitions. IMO it is ethical to violate contracts that would cause undue harm to one of the parties without good cause and furthermore it is unethical for a party to ask another to sign such a contract. And working at another sandwich place is not good cause. Clearly in your opinion you think it is unethical to violate such a contract because you appear to believe that violating any agreement (almost irrespective of context) is unethical. I'd be curious if you think that Jimmy Johns is ethical, unethical, or neutral for inserting such language into a contract in the first place. I would strongly disagree with that being either neutral or ethical.
Not that the US government is an arbiter of ethics, but Jimmy Johns has dropped their non-competes in several states after state Attorneys General filed suit against them: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compet...
I know a guy who overlapped months of two different jobs.
So it exists and happens. And for IC-type positions should be even easier.
They can also request that the employer withhold additional taxes; this is fairly common because of situations where both spouses work.
They likely have two healthcare plans, but that's generally not an issue - again, it's fairly common if both spouses are employed.
For the 401K, the individual will just have to make sure that their total contributions between both companies are under the federal limit.
The IRS knows but they don't tell employers.