u/LavnirRobot

Hi everyone. Around COVID, I finished my Master’s in Robotics and started a PhD focused on planning and control.

The PhD was a bit of a shitshow. I didn’t make many relevant contacts, didn’t publish much, and came out of it feeling like I hadn’t really built the career I was supposed to be building. Somehow, though, I managed to land a research role at an automotive company.

It turned out that “research” wasn’t really what the company needed from me. Instead, I ended up broadening my skill set quite a bit, working mostly on data logging infrastructure and computer vision. I learned a lot, but eventually burned out and moved to a defense company, where I’m now working on a new robotics project being the “senior” in a junior team.

On paper, I guess my career sounds reasonably interesting. In reality, I feel like a fraud.
I’ve moved between different areas without ever really feeling like I found my path. I haven’t had much of a role model or mentor to guide me, so I’ve mostly just figured things out on my own and tried to keep moving forward.

The frustrating part is that I feel like a junior in almost everything. A lot of my Master’s colleagues are now moving into senior/lead roles, while I feel like I’ve spent the last several years becoming “kind of competent” at a bunch of different things without becoming particularly good at one.

Has anyone else ended up in a similar position after a PhD or several career pivots? How did you figure out what to specialize in, or whether you even needed to specialize? And how do you get past the feeling that you’re behind everyone else?

¡Hola! En breve cambiaré de empresa y tengo una cláusula de no competencia con una retribución mensual. La cláusula es bastante abierta (básicamente, abarca todo el sector de la empresa y también la competencia indirecta).

La verdad es que el cambio me genera algunas dudas, porque implica trabajar en un sector distinto. ¿Qué pasaría si durante el periodo de prueba decido irme?

Entiendo que la cláusula seguiría vigente, pero ¿podrían reclamarme algo más aparte del pequeño plus recibido durante esos meses?

La empresa ya mencionó la posibilidad de ir a juicio si incumpliera la cláusula cuando hablé con ellos para intentar quitarla del contrato o suavizarla. Entender un poco a qué me expongo me ayudaría a valorar si merece la pena asumir el riesgo.

¡Gracias!

Hola a todos,

Vivo en España y hace unas semanas negocié un cambio de trabajo. Todo parecía cerrado, pero justo el día antes de firmar me enviaron el contrato y me encontré con una sorpresa.

Resulta que del salario negociado un 30% corresponde a un complemento por un pacto de no competencia postcontractual de dos años.
Revisando la oferta original, sí es cierto que se indicaba que el contrato podía incluir cláusulas como la de no competencia, pero en ningún momento se me explicó que duraría dos años ni que la compensación formaría parte del salario que habíamos negociado.

Además, el contrato apenas desarrolla esa cláusula: simplemente dice que existe el pacto de no competencia y cuál es su remuneración, sin entrar en mucho más detalle.

De momento no voy a firmar hasta hablar con un abogado laboralista y aclarar todo esto.
¿Os habéis encontrado alguna vez con una situación similar? ¿Es habitual que la compensación por no competencia se “integre” dentro del salario negociado sin explicarlo expresamente durante la negociación? Personalmente me ha parecido una práctica bastante poco transparente.

I live in Spain, and a few weeks ago I negotiated a new job. Everything seemed settled, but the day before I was due to sign the contract, they sent it over and I found that it had a non-competitive clause of 2 years.

It turns out that around 30% is allocated as compensation for a two-year non-compete agreement. After reviewing the original job offer, I noticed that it did mention the employment contract could include clauses such as a non-compete agreement. However, at no point during the negotiation was I told that it would last for two years or that the compensation for it would be included within the salary we had agreed on.

On top of that, the contract barely explains the clause. It simply states that there is a post-contractual non-compete agreement and specifies the amount of compensation, without providing much additional detail.

For now, I’m not going to sign anything until I’ve spoken to an employment lawyer and fully understand the implications.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? Is it common for compensation for a post-contractual non-compete agreement to be folded into the negotiated salary without this being made explicit during the hiring process?