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

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

#281

Post by firstplacelast » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 9:54 PM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #210

Most US citizens applying for software engineering jobs can't even get a response to their resume, and then I read stories like this.

Hiring managers and HR area increasingly only open to unicorn candidates that have the exact amount of experience in the exact tech stack. While a few of those people exist, it's definitely more likely they end up interviewing people that are open to lying. So now your pipeline is filled with 90% liars, some just small white lies and others who have made a resume that has exclusively tailored lies just for your org.

The jobs aren't that hard and many people that fudged their experience are capable, so the liars that are hired perform adequately and hiring team sees no reason to adjust their strategy.

Eventually this gets out-of-hand as people learn to further exploit these practices.

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

#282

Post by StackRanker3000 » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 9:56 PM UTC

nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #276

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.

But the person you’re responding to said he did a solid job for almost a year.

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

#283

Post by StackRanker3000 » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 9:57 PM UTC

nickip wrote: post #55

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…

How was he talented? All the stories are the same. "Talented" etc. But then it leads to he never did any work. How can you assess his talent?

> worked for us for almost a year and did a solid job

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

#284

Post by wanderlust123 » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 10:21 PM UTC

sbmthakur wrote: post #259

NameForComment wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There’s literally no evidence they did either of these things. I really hope these companies can explain their hiring process as it reflects badly on them that they keep calling him top 0.1% without any explanation of their process.

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

#285

Post by wanderlust123 » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

anukin wrote: post #173

anon_2222 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we interviewed him and passed. he was horrible. it blows my mind seeing these reports of him crushing interviews and being a great dev. the bar for programmers is woefully low. on second thought there's got to be more to this story because he came to us through a recruiter who talked him up big time. did he come to you through a recruiter too? if so then either the recruiter is in on it or he has an army of different…

It’s probably because the interview process relied heavily on leetcode questions. If it did, one can effectively prepare for that and only that and can be overemployed.

No explanation has been provided to show hes good at leetcode either.

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

#286

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 10:46 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #155

Being employed in four companies is obviously not sustainable, but half of that is fairly common. I know several people who spent months working for two companies: one full time, the other part time. The most productive few would reach two full time positions and actually keep delivering for over a year. The reason this happens at all is that sufficiently large organisations expect performance to be in a specific ran…

[deleted]

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

#287

Post by aleph_minus_one » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 10:56 PM UTC

saulpw wrote: post #271

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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" amo…

I wanted to explain from a purely economic perspective why if you want a consulting role instead of a full-time job, you will likely be paid much less.

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

#288

Post by reshlo » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:20 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #95

snthpy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that.

A lot of people think of "contract" as specifically a written document, but that's not what a "contract" is in law, the written document (if it exists) can be very powerful evidence that (1) there is a contract, and (2) what its terms are, but contracts exist without them. While US employment is usually at will without a defined contract term , there are mutually enforceable obligations, including some definition of…

What good is a contract if you can’t prove what its terms are? Such a contract is worth the paper it’s printed on.

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

#289

Post by v5v3 » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 12:03 AM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #163

v5v3 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. People like that are adept at making you feel for them.

He wasn't going for that, otherwise he would be more specific. This looks like some sort of money sink he's ashamed to admit having. Might be gambling, might be porn. Whatever it is, it's not something he'll garner any compassion for.

He agreed to a YouTube interview with an established channel.

As per his cold emails and interview patter, it is my opinion that he will have considered defence and mitigations arguments to present in the interview.

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

#290

Post by cardanome » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 12:17 AM UTC

Teever wrote: post #280

cardanome wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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’…

> doesn’t mean everyone else should be forbidden from choosing to work more

No one is forbidden to work more. You seem to miss that those laws apply to wage labor. You keep bringing up all kinds of work that have nothing to do with this.

> You're describing a world

I am describing the status quo in Germany and many other developed countries. The US are the outlier.

> someone can't become a viruouso cellist

No one is telling you how much or little you are allowed to practice an instrument. You can practice 24/7 in as far as the German state is allowed. Not to mention musicians that are self-employed anyway.

Same with the other points. You can dedicate all you waking time into practicing to solve leet code questions. You can focus everything on your research.

You can work on any hobby you have as much as little as you want. You do do as much research as you want. You can work on your own business as much as you want.

The ONLY, the ONLY thing you can't do is employ someone to work more than 48 hours per week. And reverse be employed on a job that requires you to work for more than 48 hours.

I think that is pretty reasonable.

> 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.

Children used to have the freedom to work themselves to early death in mines and factories. It got so bad that it threatened the very foundation of society. So after that yeah people figured the state absolutely should protect children and families.

And again, this has nothing to do with wanting to equalize everyone. There are many areas where exceptional people can go.