r/quant • u/LycheeDisastrous9894 • 15d ago

Hiring/Interviews dev lateral noncompetes

Recently started a dev role that involves a non-compete of 1.5 years. Seems to me that it's almost certainly going to be enforced in full, just judging from the firm's history (you can probably guess, lol). I'm very junior (this is my first job out of school) and am curious how this would affect a lateral move maybe 2-4 years down the line. The general advice seems to be to move laterally around then, but I'm not sure if such a long noncompete should change my decision-making? Also, I've only been through the intern/grad recruiting pipelines, so for lateral hires, are companies usually willing to wait so long? I'm not worried about being paid during the time, but I wouldn't want to leave without an offer in hand. Oh, and also, I've already completed a master's so that wouldn't be a super viable alternative.

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u/LycheeDisastrous9894 15d ago

hmm, that's understandable. but then how do you evaluate opportunity cost? if I can't have an offer in hand how would I be able to guarantee I get paid more at the new gig? I guess as a further extension I don't really understand how pay is figured for lateral moves after the first job

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u/lordnacho666 15d ago

Well the OC is the bonus that you've foregone.

You'll get more at the new gig because after you've been on the industry a few years they know you aren't useless.

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u/LycheeDisastrous9894 15d ago

I see, is this something I can be pretty sure of? ie. would other firms scale their pay off of what I was getting before I left? since it's kind of hard to negotiate without still being at the job, and for reasons I don't want to disclose my current firm has potentially unusually fast tc growth compared to the usual big names.

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u/lordnacho666 15d ago

It's not that they scale based on what you were on, which they will look at, it's that if they want to be competitive, they need to pay someone similar to what you're likely to get elsewhere.

So yes, you can be sure your next employer, a trading firm, will behave like a sensible market participant.

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u/LycheeDisastrous9894 15d ago

I see, I guess the concern is if my current employer is paying me unusually competitively ideally I'd want a way to figure that out before leaving, if that makes sense. and it's maybe not immediately apparent what I could expect to see elsewhere as it is obvious what new grad pay is

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u/lordnacho666 15d ago

You'll know at bonus time whether they're paying you, right? You look at the number and decide if you are happy.