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By situation ยท 3 tips

Changing jobs or cities

What to hand over and what not to take with you when you leave, and what to weigh when choosing a new place to live.

1 Before you leave

Red lines for programmers and tech workers

Hand over all account access when you leave, and don't delete databases, leave backdoors or change passwords to lock the system, even if the company owes you money

Account passwords were given to you by the company, which does not mean you can still use them after you leave. Illegally controlling a system carries up to 3 years when the circumstances are serious. Deleting data so the system can't run carries up to 5 years, and 5 years or more if the consequences are especially serious. A dismissed engineer used his old administrator account to delete data and logs. The loss was more than 120,000 CNY, and he got 3 years, suspended for 5 years, and a fine of 30,000 CNY.

  • High value
  • Evidence A
  • Keeps you free
Red lines for programmers and tech workers

Don't take source code, customer lists or technical documents when you leave, don't upload them to a personal cloud drive, and don't reuse them at your next employer

The copyright in code you write at work generally belongs to the company, and a customer list may also count as a trade secret, so taking them means taking the company's property. An employee who left with the source code of a security-screening system for a new company was sentenced to 5 years and fined 500,000 CNY, and the new company was fined 4,000,000 (400ไธ‡) CNY. Another person exploited a system flaw to download more than 33,000 design files and got 1 year 10 months. The company can also sue you separately for damages.

  • High value
  • Evidence A
  • Keeps you free

2 The new job

Step by step

This site arranged the groups and order on this page; the tips come from the book. About