[michaelochurch]

Non-competes aren't there to be enforced, but to make the person stinky to future employers. A decent company will cover legal expenses and, in the extreme outlier case, judgments-- and an indecent one will fire you, but you probably won't get sued in either case. The effect of a non-compete on a star hire is relatively small, but if you're an entry-level engineer, the difference between $85,000 per year and $85,000 per year plus theoretically unbounded legal risk is huge.

Non-competes, non-solicits, and (except in a severance) non-disparagement clauses are shitty practices that deserve to die in a taint fire.

[kabouseng]

Except that the junior engineer's old company won't sue because he is just a junior engineer...

The non-compete risk probably comes only with the star hires / client facing employees (risk of clients being lured to the other company).

[michaelochurch]

Except that the junior engineer's old company won't sue because he is just a junior engineer...

True in practice, but there is risk.

Plus, it's just a shitty conversation to be compelled to have when you're trying to convince someone to hire you. ("One last thing, I'm under this non-compete, so can I get a written agreement to cover legal costs?") An executive can probably get that protection. For a junior, that's a deal breaker. And typically, the vindictive or paranoid firm won't actually sue your next company, they'll just ask your new firm to fire you... and often (for low-level people like software engineers) they will.

Tech is diverse enough and "competition" generally amorphously-defined enough that junior engineers rarely get strung up on non-competes. It's more of an issue in finance.

The only time it happens in tech is when there's a deliberate attempt to destroy someone's reputation, like what a few people (none especially important) from Google tried to do after I left that place.

[kyllo]

This is but one of many tactics employers will use to try to decrease their own employees' value on the open labor market.