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Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?

291 points jshchnz | 2 comments | 02 Jul 25 20:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.401s | source

Soham Parekh is all the rage on Twitter right now with a bunch of startups coming out of the woodwork saying they either had currently employed him or had in the past.

Serious question: why aren't so many startups hiring processes filtering out a candidate who is scamming/working multiple jobs?

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dazzeloid ◴[02 Jul 25 21:39 UTC] No.44449134[source]▶
he's a really talented engineer, crushed our interviews. the funny thing was that he actually had multiple companies on his linkedin at the same time, including ours. we just thought they must have been internships or something and he never updated them (he felt a bit chaotic). but then it turned out he was working at all of them simultaneously.

worked for us for almost a year and did a solid job (we also let him go when we discovered the multiple jobs)

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the_real_cher ◴[02 Jul 25 21:55 UTC] No.44449255[source]▶
Why would you let him go if he was doing a solid job?
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avmich ◴[02 Jul 25 22:15 UTC] No.44449417[source]▶
Yeah, this looks like a cargo culting. Don't need work, need the guy to belong only to them...
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gk1 ◴[03 Jul 25 12:22 UTC] No.44454272[source]▶
People who practice overemployment delude themselves that multiple jobs doesn’t affect their performance and therefore there’s nothing wrong with working multiple jobs. Their subreddit is a dumbfounding echo chamber.

I had an “over-employed” person on my team (who lied about it) and I can confirm what all others are saying about this guy: they start going AWOL, miss important discussions, miss deadlines, blame their colleagues (creating toxic culture), start doing shoddy work because they’re not thinking deeply through problems and also to keep expectations low, create busywork for others to take the pressure off themselves, use company resources and accounts for other projects (creating security issues, among others)… just to name a few reasons.

It’s not about possessiveness. Many co’s are glad to hire contractors, who don’t “belong” to them.

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Aurornis ◴[03 Jul 25 15:56 UTC] No.44456358[source]▶
> People who practice overemployment delude themselves that multiple jobs doesn’t affect their performance and therefore there’s nothing wrong with working multiple jobs. Their subreddit is a dumbfounding echo chamber.

It blows my mind that overemployed people have become folk heroes. They're obviously not putting full effort into two jobs.

I had the same experience as you with an "overemployed" person: Working with them is really bad for everyone else. They lie, play extreme politics, throw teammates under the bus, make you work harder for everything, and they don't care if it causes you harm because you're just a temporary coworker at one of their "Js"

There's nothing to celebrate about these people. They screw over their teammates far more than the company they work for.

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1. dakiol ◴[04 Jul 25 11:02 UTC] No.44463412[source]▶
I think you just described most of the C level executives in the tech industry. They leave companies behind destroyed, with a big pay check. But it’s unethical if simple engineers do it. Sure.
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2. skeeter2020 ◴[04 Jul 25 14:49 UTC] No.44465056[source]▶
Not sure what your direct experience is, but the difference I've experienced first hand is that C-suite are INTENSELY focused on the single company but only for a relatively short period of time. They're not spread too thin; they're motivated solely by short-term incentives. An OE engineer is both, and we can agree they all suck for people who want to do meaningful work and build an awesome team - but they seem very different to me.