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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?

#351

Post by sugarpimpdorsey »

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.

> Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates -- other startups will tell you this as well.

People who regularly don't show up for work are by definition not "top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates" - in fact quite the opposite.

That'll get you fired from PetSmart, let alone some bullshit $250k/yr software job.

I think startups' freewheeling management and hiring practices need examined because this would be caught by the most basic of background or reference checks at any traditional business.

Can't wait for Paul Graham's next essay on "How to Not Hire People Who Smoke Crack In the Toilets Instead of Showing Up for Work" for more informative life lessons.

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

#352

Post by altairprime »

isatty wrote: post #293
altairprime wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out I prefer some of my hobbies to benefit other people’s goals, which is often sated by employment.

Isn’t this just a cringey way to say you prefer your hobbies to make money.

No? If I meant that, I would have said that. My current hobby that benefits others is reverse engineering something. I have no revenue plans or pathway for that effort, it’s been underway for five years, and it’s keeping my need to help occupied as I go through full-time school.

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

#353

Post by BeFlatXIII »

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…

For most of us, our J2 is chatting on Hacker News. These guys make it pay.

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

#354

Post by baobun »

j45 wrote: post #300
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Consulting often pays way more than salaries every do.

In the same way that driving Uber pays more than driving for a taxi company: Not as much when you factor in your own expenses (taxes, insurance, etc) and non-billable work.

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

#355

Post by BeFlatXIII »

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.

That makes you the sucker.

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

#356

Post by BeFlatXIII »

rpcorb wrote: post #216
KeplerBoy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of people employed at a single job who only pretend to work. That's life.

When people with no integrity or ethics defraud their employers, "it's life"?

We pretend to work, they pretend to pay.

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

#357

Post by burnt-resistor »

isatty wrote: post #294

The amount of people saying “yeah he’s a great engineer” with the only supporting piece of evidence being “he cracked our leetcode interviews” is bonkers.

It's the surest signals of overrated candidates who lead with egos rather than results and an overrated hiring process with easily-fooled people who can't see it.

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

#358

Post by burnt-resistor »

pwthornton wrote: post #328
isatty wrote: post #294

The amount of people saying “yeah he’s a great engineer” with the only supporting piece of evidence being “he cracked our leetcode interviews” is bonkers.

“He’s a great engineer.” “Also, he never shipped anything good.” Hiring is completely broken in a lot of tech. Getting the right companies on your resume early on — regardless of your skills — makes you a made person. And then if you know how to game interviews, you’ll be double made.

@sama's Triple Byte ostensibly tried to "solve" this and did nothing but make it worse. As a candidate, they lied to me saying "I had the 'best' score ever on their screening process". Ironically, I ended up at Meta where the interviewing process is somewhat like Google's but now even more difficult technically.

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

#359

Post by markus_zhang »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #291

I suspect most companies are cargo culting their hiring process. This guy is one more piece of evidence. He knew what hiring managers wanted to hear, and used that to get in the door. My advice to companies is to stop chasing unicorns and 10x engineers. Intentionally try to hire ordinary average engineers. Your company making a SaaS app doesn’t need talented programmers, it just needs ordinary ones. Ego leads founder…

My advice to companies who wants to hire 10x programmers is always:

Either pick someone inside who really wants the job, or find a brilliant new graduate who really wants the job.

It’s usually safer and cheaper.

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

#360

Post by markus_zhang »

austin-cheney wrote: post #311
ungreased0675 wrote: post #291

I suspect most companies are cargo culting their hiring process. This guy is one more piece of evidence. He knew what hiring managers wanted to hear, and used that to get in the door. My advice to companies is to stop chasing unicorns and 10x engineers. Intentionally try to hire ordinary average engineers. Your company making a SaaS app doesn’t need talented programmers, it just needs ordinary ones. Ego leads founder…

No. First of all we are developers only. Calling ourselves engineers is a sociopathic lie. Almost none of us are capable of doing anything that resembles engineering. The problem with software is permissive tolerance of gross incompetence. I have been doing this for 20 years in the corporate world and can easily say 15% of the workforce knows what they are doing. The rest is reliant on other things to do it for them:…

I have to say this treating other engineers as God attitude is really weird.

Other engineers make horrendous mistakes too. Other engineers just get by too.

If you think a piece of paper means really a lot, then so be it.

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