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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?

#201
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it still common to ask leetcode questions during interview?

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

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

#203
post #171
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this email? https://x.com/var_epsilon/status/1940492841232584745

That's a particularly terrible cold email, you can tell he didn't even bother applying some basic personalisation to it outside of [COMPANY_NAME]

Nutshell: Toxic founders who want developers to code 24X7 may hired him seeing this.

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

#204
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go ask wait staff or warehouse workers how much they like their part time jobs.

So why would you deny me the right to hold several part time contracts instead of a full time "job"? I'm not in those industries.

because the overhead of a PT or fractional employee is just about as much as a FT one, and why should I give you 100% attention when you only want to give me 50%?

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

#206
post #176

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 don't doubt he's in the 1% or 0.1% of candidates you're interviewing, but there is one very simple solution startups could apply to make it easier to find top talent -> remove "US ONLY" from their job listings.

You might not be aware, but hiring outside of the country causes a whole slew of other points of friction and complexity. It actually isn't "one very simple solution" in practice, which is why many startups don't do it.

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

#207

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. 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 blows my mind is people think overemployment of an engineer is bad, but it is more than acceptable for CEO to held top positions in different companies.

It’s not acceptable

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a hell of a gambling addiction when he's making about 10 times what I am. You'd think you'd stop if you were just flushing that money down the toilet and not winning anything from the gambling

About twenty years ago there was a story in Melbourne, of a young foreign student at the casino. He withdrew $1,000 from the ATM from his home back in Asia. Was duly given the cash. He noticed though, that looking at online banking, his balance hadn't changed. Odd, but maybe it was a vagary of international transactions (and again, 20+ years ago). Nope. So he took out another $1,000. And another. Every time, got the…

> it actually appeared more that he was just addicted to gambling

Presumably he expected the jig to go up eventually and be asked to return the money; if his gambling was successful he could've returned the money and avoid any trouble, essentially having made his winnings on credit.

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

#209
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google has that. Possibly these are becoming more common because of /r/overemployed. Most companies don't want you working another W-2 job, but realize they can't just ban all consulting.

I think an copyright/IP assignment contract is standard in many or most U.S. software jobs, at least when working for a big enough company that they have a lawyer who handles the NDA/employment paperwork. That pretty much automatically rules out over employment because you can’t separately promise two different companies that you’re assigning all software copyrights to them rather than you, it’s an incompatible contr…

A large percentage of U.S. software jobs (and probably nearly all YCombinator startups) are in California. Other states might be different, but stuff you do outside of work doesn't automatically become your employer's IP in California.

There are some nuances and I'm not a lawyer, but the gist of it is that three ways to trigger the IP to attach to your employer:

1. You do it on-prem or during work hours (but work hours are flexible for salaried employees)

2. You do it using company equipment (say, company laptop at home)

3. It's reasonably related to what you or other people do at your day job

If none of those apply, then you own it. That's relevant to the discussion at hand because, at least in California, you could work from home for two companies with unrelated businesses and not break any rules.

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