Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 448 posts

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

#431

Post by bestthrowaway »

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…

That's an interesting way to put it. I was overemployed from 2021 to 2024. I worked two full-time start-up jobs (well, a W2 job and a full-time contract position that was for all intents and purposes a full-time W2 job, just that it paid me without the deductions and such). When one company shut down, I continued doing contract work but not at a full-time capacity.

During my tenure at both companies, my higher-ups liked my performance so much that when it was time to select people for raises/promotions/rate increases etc, I was among the few selected. I took this as a sign that my half-performance was valued enough to earn me more money so I wanted to stay like this forever. Alas, it didn't.

I'm extremely fortunate that everyone was pretty flexible. If I couldn't make a daily standup (or whatever regular meeting), I'd just say I can't make it and no one would ask why. Same if I had to leave a meeting early. As long as I got my stuff done, no one complained.

And really, that's what I appreciated the most. I'd happily work for either single one of these companies simply because they just respected everyone's time and treated everyone like adults. I acknowledge that I was technically taking advantage of this trust by working a separate job, but I cannot stress enough how happy my employers were with my half-performance. So as you mentioned, it's either give full-performance to one company for half-pay (or well, regular pay I guess), or give half-performance to two companies for double-pay. The economics made perfect sense, and because the companies felt good about the value they were getting from me for their money, I didn't feel guilty.

But it did make me think -- how many other people are giving full-performance to a company when half-performance would be satisfactory, if not exemplary? Especially now in the age of AI where many people are more productive than ever, why couldn't companies consider a full work-week 20 hours a week instead of 40, if they can still extract the same value? I think most individuals would be so much happier to work under those circumstances, and if they wanted to fill in the rest of the 20-hour week with another job they could, and not have to play this game.

I mean, the obvious answer is obvious, but a guy could dream.

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

#432

Post by dalemhurley »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #355
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.

For trusting people to fulfil their employment contract?

What is the alternative, micromanage and monitor everyone? I am in the camp I want to trust people, especially highly skilled and highly paid employees.

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

#434

Post by cardanome »

ManlyBread wrote: post #430
cardanome wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. You won't earn more. I've considered that at one point and most adverts on freelance sites like Upwork are written by people who are either clueless or downright insane. These people usually want you to create a completely new system from scratch using techn…

On upwork you are competing with people from third world countries who can offer vastly lower prices.

Also the quality of the work is bottom of the barrel.

What you want to do is look for small to mid sized companies in your area and solve problems for them. You gonna build up your network and reputation.

There is a good reason many people don't go freelance, it is not for everyone. You need some really good social and business skills and it can be stressful. But the money is sure there.

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

#437

Post by [deleted] »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #191
dakiol wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you just described most of the C level executives in the tech industry. They leave companies behind destroyed, with a big pay check. But it’s unethical if simple engineers do it. Sure.

Not sure what your direct experience is, but the difference I've experienced first hand is that C-suite are INTENSELY focused on the single company but only for a relatively short period of time. They're not spread too thin; they're motivated solely by short-term incentives. An OE engineer is both, and we can agree they all suck for people who want to do meaningful work and build an awesome team - but they seem very…

[deleted]

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

#438

Post by madamelic »

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.

> 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.

Why.

I have worked in VC-backed startups for over a decade. The individual employee isn't going to change the direction of the company regardless of how hard they work.

The people who make or break the startup are the founders. Even the middle managers do not matter. If the founders / top level leaders have no idea what they are doing and do not want to make money, nothing a single engineer does even matters.

The best thing an engineer can do in that scenario is give advice and do work as prescribed. Trying to save the founders from themselves is a recipe for going crazy and burning out.

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

#439

Post by madamelic »

ManlyBread wrote: post #430
cardanome wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. You won't earn more. I've considered that at one point and most adverts on freelance sites like Upwork are written by people who are either clueless or downright insane. These people usually want you to create a completely new system from scratch using techn…

There are other platforms that are not public and require vetting.

Also, most of my contracts have come through referral. It's absolutely possible to survive freelancing as a software engineer.

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

#440

Post by [deleted] »

cardanome wrote: post #248
Teever wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Like, in Germany it's illegal for someone to have a full-time job doing software and then a side business making soap and selling it at a farmer's market on the weekend? That's... peculiar.

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…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN