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

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

#271

Post by saulpw »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #184
tomp wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he's that competent, he could hire/mentor juniors and just use his skills to run a contracting business and keep making big bucks while not having to lie all the time? Much much easier said than done. 99% of companies that want to hire employees won't hire a contractor/consultant instead for that job. How do I know? 15 years experience, top candidate in many interviews, great salary / employment. Yet every time…

> How do I know? 15 years experience, top candidate in many interviews, great salary / employment. Yet every time I've tried to get a consulting arrangement set up it's been extremely hard and ultimately unprofitable (i.e. pays significantly less than full-time job, on average). Sounds like a legit negotiation strategy: - You prefer a consulting arrangement over being hired. - The company prefers to pay less for the…

You say this like you can just talk with the VP and CFO and have a nuts and bolts conversation about big systems things as an pre-hire IC. You can't negotiate with even medium-sized companies at that level. They have a fixed idea of what the 'role' looks like, and almost always it's full-time, long-term. You can negotiate maybe 10-25% salary increase, but that's it. Good luck even getting more PTO (the "standard" amount is always "generous" and if you got more it would complicate "team dynamics").

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

#273

Post by hooloovoo_zoo »

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.

The had 100 candidates and hired him. Top 1% QED. (/s)

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

#274

Post by cardanome »

Teever wrote: post #252
cardanome wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rais…

> I don't see why the state should regulate how someone without kids spends their free time if that person wants to work.

So single people that can work 60 hours a day would get all the careers options while the person raising children is left in the dust? Does not sound fair.

> 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.

That sounds like a healthy mix of activities. On the other hand working 60 hours a week is not.

> The state shouldn't restrict people from choosing how to spend their time,

It does not. You can create your own business and work yourself to death if you wish to. Again, the protection is for those that are employed by others.

Or in other words: You are allowed to hurt your own health as an entrepreneur but you are not allowed to employ people in such a way that it excessively hurts their health, even if they "consent" to it. Thing is, they can't consent because there is a power imbalance. Even if you make laws that people working less hours should not be discriminated, you can't really stop it.

Not to mention someone who is a workaholic needs psychological help not the "freedom" to work more.

> 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.

We already could already be working significantly less. I always like to link https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

That is just not how capitalism works. Yes, you can fight for wage increases. You can fight for limits of working hours. But those gains will have to be paid in blood.

You idea would only work under socialism which had the Subbotnik which was volunteer unpaid labor on the weekends for the betterment of society.

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

#276

Post by nyarlathotep_ »

dazzeloid wrote: post #10

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…

> he's a really talented engineer, crushed our interviews.

Think it says a lot about this industry if "really talented 'engineer'" means passing loads of gamified interviews and not delivering things on time.

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

#277

Post by nyarlathotep_ »

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…

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

What about people that put full effort and then some into jobs with long hours and loads of stress just to get hit with a PIP or get caught in the latest round of layoffs?

If that's how companies treat people, what's so wrong with 'overemployed' people having a fallback, especially in today's market?

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

#278

Post by cardanome »

dalemhurley wrote: post #42

This is insane, there is a Reddit, of course there is, of almost 500K people, https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/ , who discuss all of the strategies to do this. Just imagine being one of the people who legit joins a startup, is passionate, working long hours, earning your vest, to have your coworker pretending to be working.

This makes no sense. The whole thing is idiotic. Seems to be a combination of LARP and some people trying to push a narrative.

If you really can work multiple jobs, just go freelance. Offer some consulting or whatever. You will earn more and have less stress than juggling multiple jobs.

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

#279

Post by wanderlust123 »

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…

What was your interview process like? I think that would be helpful information in helping design a better vetting procedure to avoid this in the future.

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

#280

Post by Teever »

cardanome wrote: post #274
Teever wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 rais…

> I don't see why the state should regulate how someone without kids spends their free time if that person wants to work. So single people that can work 60 hours a day would get all the careers options while the person raising children is left in the dust? Does not sound fair. > Some people are just naturally inclined to be active, whether it's some combination of work, family, volunteering, and sports activities whi…

I understand the concern about exploitation, but there’s a fine line between protection and paternalism. Just because some people overwork themselves doesn’t mean everyone else should be forbidden from choosing to work more and it isn't obvious that working 60 hours a week hurts your health.

Raising kids is but one kind of life stressor and it's not the state’s job to "equalize" life paths by punishing those who don’t have children or want to pursue different goals. Instead, the state should ensure a strong safety net so people are free to find their own balance.

Some pursuits genuinely take a monk-like dedication to see breakthroughs and we shouldn't hobble ambitious people who want to undertake them in the interest of fairness. You're describing a world where someone can't become a viruouso cellist, pioneer a life saving neurosurgery technique or revolutionize computer architecture because someone else decides to have kids. That doesn't sit right with me -- it's a little too Harrison Bergeron.

People might want to throw themselves into intense work for a decade before changing direction and focusing on raising a family or giving back to their community. Or maybe they want to do that the other way, start a family first and then once their kids are adults they want to pursue dreams that they spent decades dreaming of. Flexibility and dynamism in life roles is part of a healthy society.

The role of the state should be to ensure that no one has to 60 hours a week to survive and to ensure that everyone has real opportunities to live their best life that they choose -- not to make that choice for them.

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