Big N Discussion - January 17, 2021

Microsoft Non Compete Question (Azure -> AWS)

Hi i'm currently a software engineer at Microsoft, working on Azure Networking. I am the lowest level software engineer (l59) and have been working here for 2 years, making around $140k.

I recently received my dream job from Amazon AWS Security and want to accept. I read my employment agreement at Microsoft and have a 1 year non-compete for directly competing activities / products .

Can anyone share how to navigate a situation like this? In a vague sense AWS and Azure are competitors, but the direct teams / sub-products I'd be working on are completely different.

Afaik non-competes are enforcable in Washington, but usually only for higher level execs / VPs. I have seen many people on LinkedIn from Azure go to AWS or GCP with seemingly no issues?

Should I tell my AWS recruiter about the non compete and see what they say? Perhaps they have a legal team that can sign off on this?

Any advice is appreciated.

/r/cscareerquestions Thread