[founderling]

I beg to differ. They did not "add" a non-compete. They scared him into signing one.

Someone at Amazon put a paper on his desk and said that unless he signs it, they would not "authorize my employment". Whatever that means.

    So I signed. Because what
    other options did I have?

The option not to sign. He had an offer from them and he agreed. That is a legal binding contract that they have to abide. So don't sign and say "Sorry, but we have a legally binding agreement. And this is not in line with it.".

If you let people scare you by saying something, they will continue to play tricks on you. Stick to what is written.

[cortesoft]

He was on a work visa. If he loses his job, he loses his right to stay in the country.

That puts a lot of extra pressure on someone to keep their job.

[founderling]

Yes. That is how they scared him into signing it.

But I suggest standing your ground in such a situation. They wanted to work with him. They had a contract with him. So there was a lot of pressure on them too. If they breached the contract they would lose an employee and face legal repercussions.

[jsnell]

I think you're vastly overestimating both the leverage a low-level employee would have in one of those megacorps and the amount of autonomy that an HR rep would have in a case like this. They have a process to follow, and that process does not include negotiation. Maybe they have the power to escalate the request to someone with decision making power, but that's going to take time, and their flowchart probably does not allow for allowing somebody to start work provisionally until that escalation is solved.

What "legal repercussions" are you thinking of? The author stated that their new contract was "at will", so their employment could be terminated for any reason at all.

(Not defending Amazon here. But the employee had been put into a position where they had no realistic choice but to sign.)