Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs? • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by cardanome » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:08 PM UTC

shankr wrote: post #246

Teever wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Like, in Germany it's illegal for someone to have a full-time job doing software and then a side business making soap and selling it at a farmer's market on the weekend? That's... peculiar.

Yes! It basically means you go full on freelance or just stay put with whatever job you have. I wanted to try freelancing before I quite my full time job but it's not that easy legally.

I am a bit confused why you think it is not easy. In fact you have the right to reduce your hours from full time to part time if your company employs more than 15 people. So you can easily make time for a freelancing job on the side.

Also you don't really need to track your hours when freelancing other than maybe for billing purposes so you really don't need to worry about hours anyway. Generally you are considered part-time self-employed when doing less than 18 hours per week.

Earning a bit on the side is really not an issue in Germany. In fact the combination of having a part time employed job and then doing freelancing is very popular.

What doesn't work is being full time employed at two companies but that would make no sense even if you could as you would earn much less and pay insane taxes.

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

#252

Post by Teever » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:18 PM UTC

cardanome wrote: post #248

Teever wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Like, in Germany it's illegal for someone to have a full-time job doing software and then a side business making soap and selling it at a farmer's market on the weekend? That's... peculiar.

No, that case would be fine if the side business would be being self-employed. No one cares how many hours you work if you are self-employed. (Mostly, I am simplifying here) What is an issue is working employed for two jobs and going over the 48 hour limits. Working that much is very unhealthy so the state needs to protect people from being exploited. People should be able to live from working full time. Having to wo…

> Working that much is very unhealthy so the state needs to protect people from being exploited.

I get that the state needs to protect people from being exploited but I'm not sure this is the right way to go about it.

It seems to me that it would be better if the state had policies in place to ensure that one full-time job (or less even) provided sufficient income to enable a person to live self-sufficiently and raise a family.

Working a full-time job and raising a family is often a more stressful thing than a single person working a job that requires over-time. I don't see why the state should regulate how someone without kids spends their free time if that person wants to work.

Some people are just naturally inclined to be active, whether it's some combination of work, family, volunteering, and sports activities while others are not. I have a friend who is constantly working and constantly going to concerts and playing on several sports teams. His life seems stressful to me and far beyond how I want to spend my life but he enjoys it.

The state shouldn't restrict people from choosing how to spend their time, but instead should strive to create a society where people aren't forced to spend too much of their time working to meet their basic needs, with the ultimate goal of gradually reducing the time needed to do so over time.

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

#253

Post by lproven » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:20 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #225

lproven wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employment contracts in the US are rare. Really? Does that mean what it say: you get a job and you do not get a written contract? I don't think, in 38 years of working in 3 different countries, I've ever NOT had a written contract, even for temp or contractor roles. WTAF?

For established companies, I've always had a written employment agreement which discussed some terms common to all employees, including anti-moonlighting, usually ip assignment, etc. But I don't think I've ever had a contract that described what I going to do... maybe when I worked for a school district, but there my position title didn't actually match the work anyway; the position title was about being a tech helpe…

I am shocked, and FWIW so is my wife (Czech) and my elderly mum.

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

#254

Post by lproven » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:21 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #213

lproven wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employment contracts in the US are rare. Really? Does that mean what it say: you get a job and you do not get a written contract? I don't think, in 38 years of working in 3 different countries, I've ever NOT had a written contract, even for temp or contractor roles. WTAF?

Yes, really. Executives can be an exception. Exceptional circumstances are an exception. Increasingly less common union jobs are an exception. But ‘at will’ is far more common in the US.

[flagged]

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

#255

Post by TimorousBestie » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:26 PM UTC

y-curious wrote: post #241

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all the jobs are being outsourced is why

I'm hoping that the section 174 fix from the latest tax bill will slow this down significantly

I’ll be surprised if it does. Software jobs are slumping for several reasons and the section 174 hack fixes one for a while but causes between one to four other problems depending on where you live.

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

#256

Post by moralestapia » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:26 PM UTC

gargoyle9123 wrote: post #23

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 r…

Source: anonymous account created one day ago.

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

#257

Post by johanyc » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:43 PM UTC

throwaway173738 wrote: post #211

Sevii wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leetcode questions are still the primary way to test skill in interviews.

Where? I have candidates solve a real closed-ended problem in the space we’re working in. I also give them a lot of source code to read and respond to and find issues with.

most medium to large size companies

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

#258

Post by asdf6969 » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:45 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #73

gk1 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

How often do people put full effort into even one job? I do enough to move my career forward and to keep myself employed. Everything else is just working for free.

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

#259

Post by sbmthakur » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:46 PM UTC

NameForComment wrote: post #65

gargoyle9123 wrote: post #23

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 r…

> 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. It is hilarious that companies that hired a guy who was scamming them are also convinced they are great at assessing the skill level of devs.

With due respect, they probably just asked leetcode-esque and sys design questions.

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

#260

Post by aprdm » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 7:47 PM UTC

gargoyle9123 wrote: post #23

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 r…

> Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates

How do you measure that ? It seems like he wasn't a good candidate after all. I hope y`all learn a lesson about hiring and moving away from things that aren't signal to a job.