I turned down a job offer because of NDA concerns and I'm starting to think I made a massive mistake
Some background: I left my last company about seven months ago after four years there. I signed a pretty broad NDA when I joined, standard stuff I thought, but when I actually read it carefully after leaving I noticed the non-compete clause covers "any company operating in an adjacent market" for 18 months. The language is vague enough that it could technically apply to like half the industry I work in.
I had been interviewing at a startup for about six weeks. Role was great, comp was significantly better than what I'm making now doing freelance, team seemed genuinely smart. Got to the offer stage.
I flagged the NDA issue to them honestly. Told them I wanted to be transparent before accepting, explained the clause, said I wasn't sure if my previous employer would consider this role a conflict. Their legal team looked at it for a week and then they rescinded the offer. Not because I did anything wrong, they said, but because they "couldn't take on the litigation risk."
I thought I was doing the right thing by being upfront. Now I'm watching that role get posted again on LinkedIn and I'm sitting here wondering if I should have just said nothing and taken the job. Plenty of people ignore these clauses and nothing ever happens.
My current freelance work is fine but its not sustainable long term and every application I send out now I'm second guessing whether to disclose this at all.
Has anyone actually navigated this successfully? Do you disclose NDA conflicts during hiring or do you wait until it becomes a real problem?