> He estimated that he was bringing in $30,000 to $40,000 per month Doesn't sound like "extremely dire financial circumstances" to me...
Could be a gambling addiction
Maybe we don't need to take the word of a self-proclaimed fraudster at face value.
Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
121–130 of 448 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was good at the office politics kabuki. Wore the right masks and all.
GP is asking how is he able to land multiple jobs in the first place when they can’t even land one. Office politics comes after you land a job so it doesn’t explain why he was so successful at getting multiple offers. I’ve seen claims on Twitter that he used multiple tactics: 1. Good ol’ cold emails; 2.Using a recruiter for warm intros 3. Applying like everyone else but with a resume that is full of fabrications. A c…
> Office politics comes after you land a job
You think? I'm extending the term to actually getting a job in "traditional" organizations. You already have to optimize for keywords etc, don't you? It's not human interaction but a "process".
> he targeted mostly (YC) startups eager to hire (AI) engineers quickly so they can scale.
But they got an "AI" engineer didn't they? Or no one in management could define what an "AI" engineer is?
Tbh I'd give the guy a high paying job, but in marketing.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#123I wonder... did any of those simultaneous jobs consider him a bad performer? Did any of those simultaneous jobs even have someone who could evaluate their technical employees based on what they do and not signaling? What I don't understand is why he updated his public profiles with all those simultaneous jobs..
My understanding from what I saw on twitter about this yesterday was that a number of the companies that did hire him ended up firing him very quickly soon after, I think
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#124What is the difference between this and leadership being in the committees, boards and executive seats of multiple companies? Why is it the social expectation that an IC must devote 100% of their time and energy to the operations of a single company, when their senior leadership often manages their time between the affairs of many companies in their purview?
You've answer your own question. If you are hired to work full-time you are expected to do that (as per your contract). If you are on a board or committee the expectation is a number of hours per month.
But fulltime is a contract thing (at least here) and defined by 40 hrs a week. In my country 32-36 in contracts is also called fulltime. So after those hours, I did my fulltime and now you do not own me until the next 40 hours. Unless working for competitors currently here you cannot make valid contracts to prevent it either.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#125What is the difference between this and leadership being in the committees, boards and executive seats of multiple companies? Why is it the social expectation that an IC must devote 100% of their time and energy to the operations of a single company, when their senior leadership often manages their time between the affairs of many companies in their purview?
Incidentally, why aren't there more part time positions? Probably because said leadership would then be unable to keep their employees in meetings since they're supposed to do some actual work once in a while.
> Incidentally, why aren't there more part time positions?
It is obviously easier to manage a small group of people who work full-time than a larger group of people who work part-time. So, if there does not exist a strong wish for part-time positions from the employees, few will be created.
Also, a lot of employees are there "for the money". So getting paid much worse for a part-time position is considered to be the worse deal by many employees.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#126I wonder... did any of those simultaneous jobs consider him a bad performer? Did any of those simultaneous jobs even have someone who could evaluate their technical employees based on what they do and not signaling? What I don't understand is why he updated his public profiles with all those simultaneous jobs..
Yes. He'd commit code once a week or so, and then make excuses on why he couldn't do more. They're fire him after a couple months, and by then, he'd have gotten the money.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#127Reminded me of this guy.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#128The moral of the story is that the current interviewing process is easy to cheat for people like him.
Rather, since by basic economy markets are controlled by incentives:
He is the kind of person that companies actually want. (Otherwise these companies would have set up a different interviewing process (i.e. different incentives)).
:-)
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#129I can't even find one job. What's his secret?
He perfected the hiring game, probably automated fake activity on his GitHub, lied on his resume, among other things: https://leaderbiography.com/soham-parekh/
There are a few comments from the companies that hired him in the og twitter thread [0]. Sounds like he was actually really good at interviews. Kinda shows how broken the hiring system is if you can smash an interview but fail catastrophically at the job.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#130This guy, and guys like him, are the reason why it's such a pain to do legit business in the modern world.
Try getting a code signing certificate, opening a bank account for a new business or listing an app on the App Store. You'll quickly see the effects of this kind of behavior.
This guy should be absolutely ostracized.
[Edit: not to mention the countless brilliant Indian software devs for whom he just directly put Silicon Valley out of reach.]