I've been job-searching for a few weeks now, since I don't think my start-up has legs. A recruiter from a company recently reached out to me, and I was interested in it both because (1) they'd built an open-source project I liked, and (2) I knew my company was building something very similar, and even did a product analysis of the other company.
I'm genuinely interested in joining the other company. But I don't have a clear sense of what I should be sharing with whom. My own company's product isn't out yet, so I don't feel comfortable sharing with the other company (which I would likely join instead of my own company) that we're building a competing product -- though I'm not on the team that's working on it.
I also don't feel fully comfortable asking probing questions about the business or engineering of the start-up, even though it's really important to do so to evaluate a company before joining -- it feels kind of wrong for me to be getting good information that I could potentially then use to help my own company's product.
Does anyone have advice on how to navigate this situation?
Thanks.
It would only be unethical if you have no intention of joining the new company and are only interviewing to gain information for your current employer.
Note though whatever the answer, no matter what company you end up working with you could potentially put yourself or them in hot water.
I would have told the company in the interview that your current employer was contemplating a similar product and directed your participation in the interview away from it and any particulars to it.