9 ms·

>While I'm sure no one will care to enforce it Pretty right. In the HFT world, we have people going on non-competes all the time. During that time, most firms

by 22SAS 4y ago

>While I'm sure no one will care to enforce it Pretty right. In the HFT world, we have people going on non-competes all the time. During that time, most firms do not pull their visa petition from USCIS, pay continues every two weeks and the employee is still technically an employee of the firm, just that they're on garden leave. This is done by firms so that the employees do not have to leave the US during their non-compete. They're not doing any work, so technically still counts as a visa status violation.

triyambakam 4y ago
What does it mean to go on non-compete or garden leave?
- 22SAS 4y ago
  A lot of the stuff in trading firms is proprietary and pretty secretive like trading strategies, how their systems achieve some level of latency, if they have FPGA/HW teams then what are their capabilities like. When an employee resigns to go to another trading firm, to ensure that they don't leave right away and use the secret sauce at their new firm, they put that employee on a non-compete or a garden leave. Basically, for a period of time, could be as little as 2-3 months to 2 years, that employee can either sit at home or go work in an industry that is not trading but for that duration they cannot work in the same industry. The logic is that strategies and systems change pretty frequently, so in that time whatever knowledge that employee has, becomes outdated. If they decide to sit at home, to make it lucrative, most firms will pay their base salary for that period, or some percentage of total comp (base+bonus). Since the employee is getting paid to do nothing, almost nobody in trading has any issues with non-competes. While this is pretty awesome, it is a pain in the butt for a visa holder making such a transition. Technically, to remain in status a visa worker has to also be performing the duties on their petition, so even if they get paid during non-compete it can lead for them to leave the US. Since this is not as simple to enforce and not rigorously checked, their previous employer does not revoke their petition till they start at their new firm. Since the workers petition is still active with USCIS, they're getting paid and have benefits still active, it just appears that the employee is still working.
  - version_five 4y ago
    > Since the employee is getting paid to do nothing, almost nobody in trading has any issues with non-competes. That's surprising to me, I assume these are mostly ambitious people who would not want the gap in their work record that came from spending a year being paid to do nothing. Obviously there are other things one could do, but they probably don't advance the career the same way a year of real work does
    - formercoder 4y ago
      Plenty go work in Big Tech for a bit to hang out, or try a startup, or fiddle around with trading strategies on their own time.
    - ISL 4y ago
      In some lines of work, it is only possible to get hired by signing a non-compete. As long as such garden-leave practice is industry-standard, it may not be a career problem. Furthermore, if you're in ambitious-mode, you can take that entire year to get better at your discipline of choice, paid for by your "ex"-employer.
    - 22SAS 4y ago
      If they're going to stick in trading then that doesn't matter because non-competes are standard in the industry, so everyone will understand. Some take it as a way to get some paid downtime. A friend of mine, who joined my firm, went around Europe on his 4-month non-compete. Others do something like that, if it is too long then they just work in tech. Some firms like Jane Street and Old Mission have no non-competes.
    - brailsafe 4y ago
      It seems odd to conflate a gapless resume with ambition, desire to work, or even constant work with career advancement or career advancement with generalized ambition. The people I know that manage to maintain long gapless work histories aren't the most ambitious, and they often work harder than the people who've seen more career advancement. The people I think of as the most ambitious might not even have careers, but some do. But that might be unrelated, and I think you're perhaps referring to people who specifically have the ambition to climb a career ladder and I've definitely found resume gaps to not help in that pursuit, but I don't think people with unsuperficial career ambition care so much about gaps.
- paranoidrobot 4y ago
  'garden leave' in general is a form of leave granted (assigned) when the company does not want, or can not have you doing work. Wikipedia's got a better and more thorough definition than what I tried to write: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave

by 22SAS 4y ago

triyambakam 4y ago

What does it mean to go on non-compete or garden leave?

22SAS 4y ago
A lot of the stuff in trading firms is proprietary and pretty secretive like trading strategies, how their systems achieve some level of latency, if they have FPGA/HW teams then what are their capabilities like. When an employee resigns to go to another trading firm, to ensure that they don't leave right away and use the secret sauce at their new firm, they put that employee on a non-compete or a garden leave. Basically, for a period of time, could be as little as 2-3 months to 2 years, that employee can either sit at home or go work in an industry that is not trading but for that duration they cannot work in the same industry. The logic is that strategies and systems change pretty frequently, so in that time whatever knowledge that employee has, becomes outdated. If they decide to sit at home, to make it lucrative, most firms will pay their base salary for that period, or some percentage of total comp (base+bonus). Since the employee is getting paid to do nothing, almost nobody in trading has any issues with non-competes. While this is pretty awesome, it is a pain in the butt for a visa holder making such a transition. Technically, to remain in status a visa worker has to also be performing the duties on their petition, so even if they get paid during non-compete it can lead for them to leave the US. Since this is not as simple to enforce and not rigorously checked, their previous employer does not revoke their petition till they start at their new firm. Since the workers petition is still active with USCIS, they're getting paid and have benefits still active, it just appears that the employee is still working.
- version_five 4y ago
  > Since the employee is getting paid to do nothing, almost nobody in trading has any issues with non-competes. That's surprising to me, I assume these are mostly ambitious people who would not want the gap in their work record that came from spending a year being paid to do nothing. Obviously there are other things one could do, but they probably don't advance the career the same way a year of real work does
  - formercoder 4y ago
    Plenty go work in Big Tech for a bit to hang out, or try a startup, or fiddle around with trading strategies on their own time.
  - ISL 4y ago
    In some lines of work, it is only possible to get hired by signing a non-compete. As long as such garden-leave practice is industry-standard, it may not be a career problem. Furthermore, if you're in ambitious-mode, you can take that entire year to get better at your discipline of choice, paid for by your "ex"-employer.
  - 22SAS 4y ago
    If they're going to stick in trading then that doesn't matter because non-competes are standard in the industry, so everyone will understand. Some take it as a way to get some paid downtime. A friend of mine, who joined my firm, went around Europe on his 4-month non-compete. Others do something like that, if it is too long then they just work in tech. Some firms like Jane Street and Old Mission have no non-competes.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    It seems odd to conflate a gapless resume with ambition, desire to work, or even constant work with career advancement or career advancement with generalized ambition. The people I know that manage to maintain long gapless work histories aren't the most ambitious, and they often work harder than the people who've seen more career advancement. The people I think of as the most ambitious might not even have careers, but some do. But that might be unrelated, and I think you're perhaps referring to people who specifically have the ambition to climb a career ladder and I've definitely found resume gaps to not help in that pursuit, but I don't think people with unsuperficial career ambition care so much about gaps.
paranoidrobot 4y ago
'garden leave' in general is a form of leave granted (assigned) when the company does not want, or can not have you doing work. Wikipedia's got a better and more thorough definition than what I tried to write: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave