Soham Parekh was the perfect candidate for software engineering. The problem was that several new technology companies thought so.
At least 10 executives of technology companies have said publicly in recent days that Parekh had recently used, which caused a wave of discussion on the Internet about the remote work practices of the technology industry and the relatively recent phenomenon of technology employees who surreptitiously maintain multiple jobs at the same time.
The name of Parekh began to circulate after Suhail Doshi, the former CEO of the Mixpanel analysis, wrote a post on Wednesday warning those in the technology industry that Parekh was trying to work in several startups at the same time. Parekh did not respond to requests for comments by email.
“PSA: There is a guy called Soham Parekh (in India) that works in 3-4 new companies at the same time. It has been taking advantage of YC companies and more. Be careful,” he wrote in X, referring to new companies that have received accelerator and combinator funds.
“I shot this guy in his first week and told him to stop lying / cheating people. He has not stopped a year later. No more excuses,” Doshi wrote, who did not respond to a request for comments.
People in the comments shared similar stories.
“We just signed it for our work test next week. I saw this tweet. Canceled work test. Thank you for sharing!” A user wrote in the publication.
“LMFAOO, I interviewed this guy yesterday, brother, I’m dying,” another wrote.
While the statements about him circulated, Parekh began to give interviews.
Parekh admitted having worked at several startups at the same time in an interview on Thursday with the daily online technology program “TBPN”.
“I’m not proud of what I have done,” Parekh said. “That is not something that support. But, you know, financial circumstances, essentially. No one really likes to work 140 hours a week, right? But I had to do it out of necessity. I was in extremely terrible financial circumstances.”
Parekh said that in order to have multiple jobs at the same time, he is a “not sleeping in series” and does not “do anything out of coding.” He also rejected online rumors that he had a team of engineers who worked for him or who was using artificial intelligence tools to acquire more jobs.
The proportion of people in the United States with multiple jobs recently increased from 5.3% and 5.5%, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In an X discussion with Andriy Mulyar, the CEO of Nomic Ai, another startup in which Parekh worked, Parekh said that most of the works he had in only one time was four, at least several of which had six -digit salaries. He estimated that he was bringing $ 30,000 to $ 40,000 per month. Mulyar confirmed to NBC News that the account in discussion X belonged to Parekh and that Parekh was previously used in normal AI.
Parekh said in the “TBPN” interview that he began juggling with multiple jobs in 2022. He made that he did it out of financial necessity, and added that he had deferred an offer to graduate and opted for an online title. A photo of his curriculum published by Doshi, which Lowe confirmed that he had received, says he attended Georgia Tech from September 2020 to May 2022. A school spokesman said in a statement to NBC News that he had no record of a student with that name.
“It is said a lot about me at this time, and most of you do not know the full story,” Parekh said in his X account, who confirmed that he was his in the “TBPN” interview. “If there is something to know about me, I love building. That’s it. I have been isolated, discarded and excluded by almost all I have met and every company I have worked on. But building is the only thing I have really met, and that is what I will continue doing.”
Marcus Lowe, the founder of the technology startup, shared an experience similar to that of other employers who spoke online. Lowe confirmed to NBC News that Parekh was the person who appeared in the video “TBPN”.
Lowe said Parekh gave his interview in person in February and even surpassed most candidates. But as his first work day approached, more and more problems continued to emerge.
Whether he was sick or that he had visited the family, Lowe said, Parekh would find an excuse after an excuse of why he could not appear to work. He said that at first they seemed credible, until he began investigating the Github account of Parekh.
“I actually realize in his Github profile that he was also committing code the previous two weeks, including the week he was sick,” Lowe said. “So it was a bit strange to me, I mean, maybe you’re offline if you’re sick. Usually, you’re not committing a ton of code.”
Lowe added that when he looked a little, he discovered that Parekh was committing code with another company called Sync.SO. He sent a message to the company’s founder, who confirmed that Parekh was also working there.
“This was a great waste of time for us, a great distraction. We are a small business,” Lowe said. “We are trying to survive, and such a direct immoral behavior was felt worth speaking.”
Parekh can be seen in Sync.so in several publications by company employees, as well as in videos presented on its YouTube channel. An employee confirmed that Parekh was used in Sync.SO but rejected an application for an interview.
Parekh now says he signed an agreement to work in “a company and a single company.” He told “TBPN” that he would be working on another startup called Darwin.
Sanjit Juneja, its founder and CEO, said in a statement sent by email: “In Darwin, we are focused solely on building the most innovative software products for brands and content creators. Soham is an incredibly talented engineer and we believe in their skills to help bring our products to the market.”
