for companies who hired him and let him go, you should be reviewing your interview system.
it looks like we are going back to old argument "coders who are good at interviews (most likely leetcode), but terrible at delivering actual work."
Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
371–380 of 448 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#372he'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…
It seems to me a really talented engineer would deliver more than solid work, no?
Why bother, when you get the paid the same regardless?
I don’t know the guy, but I feel like a lot of people are missing this angle - just because you’re technically capable, doesn’t mean you’re actually motivated or that you actually bother to deliver. You can also be lazy and just collect your check.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#373I did two full-time jobs for a month as part of changing jobs fifteen years ago and it’s exceedingly intense but otherwise was fine; eighteen hour waking days leave a lot of boredom time, no matter how many hobbies you have. Employers don’t like this because that’s a lot of work they could have persuaded an employee to provide as unpaid overtime labor instead; much this outrage is simple jealousy. If you’re doing the…
> eighteen hour waking days leave a lot of boredom time, no matter how many hobbies you have Lol - you don't have enough hobbies.
Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I was bored as an adult - the times I was bored as a kid, it was because adults were making be somewhere or do something that wasn’t engaging.
I literally have a computer at hand 24/7 now, I’m almost never bored. It’s kinda crazy to think about much of a change that is.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#374I read through one of his emails. This guy is great at communicating his interest and signaling himself as a "high performer". Perhaps, he is also genuinely good at cracking these interviews. No wonder, he's been through so many of them.
Interviewing really is a distinct skill from contributing and the more people crank it the more it seems to test for interview ability.
IQ tests are also distinct skills but IQ scores are the most quantifiable and studied numbers in all of psychology and correlate with all kinds of things like job performance.
I think the purpose of the interview is the same thing. Even though there's no strong evidence for a correlation it's reasonable to believe intuitively that there is.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#375this reminds me of dating apps instead of all the women chasing the same guy its all the companies chasing the same dev soham is a chad has hiring turned into tinder?
The technologies aren't that groundbreaking after all. Resources on both side of supply and demand remain the same. There was no paradigm shit, no miraculous influx of extraordinary candidates. It's the illusion of choice creating the standoff. You have to lie and cheat to be considered a choice.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think you replied to the wrong comment.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is a US specific thing. I work as a contractors with all my clients (who know of each others) and they all pay significantly more per hour compared to an employee. As an employee I could expect to make 1/4 of what I actually make. The only exception in this arrangement was when I worked with an US company, they wanted to hire me as an employee and paid 1k per month to some company in my country just to h…
In the US it's not uncommon to have a $200k base. Not even taking into account stock compensation and benefits, you'd need to command about $400/hr contracting to fit your 4x figure. Does that sound comparable to your setup?
I don't know about the person you're asking, but I have known many people (both programmers and consultants in other areas like marketing, game design, etc.) who billed at more than that hourly rate, here in Europe (where salaries don't commonly go above $200k).
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#378We 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 hi…
You're replying to a quote about where their skill falls compared to others, and then saying it's wrong based on their contribution to the company. You're not wrong that it means they aren't top 1% in terms of value as an employee, but it's a separate topic to the quote you're replying to.
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish he was never caught. The companies deserved that
Realize that a lot of candidates who followed the rules and told the truth were screwed out of jobs. Right now there are massive layoffs and lots of good people are out of jobs and this guy is being praised by sticking it to “corporate greed”? Is Luigi Malione a hero and deserves to be pardoned by this logic ?
> "Is Luigi Malione a hero and deserves to be pardoned by this logic ?"
You say that like you're unaware that huge numbers of people (I doubt anywhere near a majority, but significant numbers certainly) DO think that he is a hero who deserves to be pardoned.
For a quick example, see https://x.com/search?q=Free%20luigi&src=typed_query
Re: Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I honestly don't understand that, as well. I am a real engineer on paper and now do full-time software development. The funny thing is, "real" engineers mostly think that programming computers is like doing magic. Meanwhile, many software developers think that "real" engineers are somehow special..