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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: 0s | 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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gargoyle9123 ◴[02 Jul 25 23:50 UTC] No.44450088[source]▶
We hired Soham.

I can tell you it's because he's actually a very skilled engineer. He will blow the interviews completely out of the water. Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates -- other startups will tell you this as well.

The problem is when the job (or work-trial in our case) actually starts, it's just excuses upon excuses as to why he's missing a meeting, or why the PR was pushed late. The excuses become more ridiculous and unbelievable, up until it's obvious he's just lying.

Other people in this thread are incorrect, it's not a dev. shop. I worked with Soham in-person for 2 days during the work-trial process, he's good. He left half of each day with some excuse about meeting a lawyer.

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mpeg ◴[04 Jul 25 14:06 UTC] No.44464702[source]▶
I don't doubt he's in the 1% or 0.1% of candidates you're interviewing, but there is one very simple solution startups could apply to make it easier to find top talent -> remove "US ONLY" from their job listings.
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sorcerer-mar ◴[04 Jul 25 15:21 UTC] No.44465315[source]▶
You might not be aware, but hiring outside of the country causes a whole slew of other points of friction and complexity. It actually isn't "one very simple solution" in practice, which is why many startups don't do it.
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1. mpeg ◴[04 Jul 25 17:30 UTC] No.44466381{3}[source]▶
I have done it as a hiring manager, it's really not that hard.

1. You can use an employer of record service which costs a few hundred bucks a month – it seems like a lot... but if I'm already paying a recruiter £12 to £25k to find me a senior data engineer in London on £80 to 120k that is going to want to WFH 3/4 days a week, I will gladly pay £400/mo for an EOR service

2. You can also not hire them, and use their services as independent contractors instead. I've never had an issue doing this with my finance teams, as long as the contractor submits a valid invoice they don't care who they are. Plus, it's good for cashflow (net 30 to net 90 is pretty standard) and the hire gets a nice tax save on their end.

I do understand that at large companies it can be tricky, but IMHO at startups there is little excuse. I suppose it all doesn't matter if you're playing with unlimited silicon valley VC money, I've only ever had to deal with european investors and they love a bit of smart frugality.

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2. sorcerer-mar ◴[04 Jul 25 17:50 UTC] No.44466510[source]▶
Oh so you’re not American but you’re explaining how obvious it is that American companies should hire outside of America

I agree if I had the UK talent pool domestically, European investors, a different health insurance regime, and existed in a different timezone, the calculus might be different.

Aside: how many people were at the company where you were paying recruiters $25k to find people?