A single software program engineer has turn into the most-hired particular person in Silicon Valley. The engineer, Soham Parekh, has admitted that he had been working throughout a number of up-and-coming Silicon Valley startups on the identical time after he went viral on social media.
Startup founders informed Fortune that Parekh would ace early interviews, land high-paying jobs, after which ghost employers when work started.
They are saying Parekh got here up with inventive excuses for late or poor high quality work, earlier than they found that he was concurrently working for a number of tech firms. He’d been provided salaries of as much as $200,000 per 12 months in base compensation by founders.
The saga started on Wednesday when Suhail Doshi, co-founder and former CEO of Mixpanel, issued a warning about him on X.
“PSA: there’s a man named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups on the identical time. He’s been preying on YC firms and extra. Beware. I fired this man in his first week and informed him to cease mendacity / scamming folks. He hasn’t stopped a 12 months later. No extra excuses,” Doshi wrote in a put up on X.
The put up was rapidly flooded with replies from fellow founders with comparable tales, together with just a few who claimed to nonetheless have Parekh on their payroll.
Doshi shared the engineer’s CV in a follow-up put up, which listed a number of firms, work expertise, and a grasp’s diploma from Georgia Institute of Know-how in laptop science. Nevertheless, the institute informed Fortune in a press release that they have been “unable to search out any report of enrollment at Georgia Tech for an individual with that title.”
In an interview on the day by day tech present TBPN, Parekh confirmed the claims he was holding down a number of jobs on the identical time, saying: “I’m not happy with what I’ve carried out. That’s not one thing I endorse both. However nobody actually likes to work 140 hours per week, I needed to do it out of necessity.”
He added he made the selection as a result of he was “in extraordinarily dire monetary circumstances.”
When reached for remark, Parekh referred Fortune to Sanjit Juneja, Founder and CEO of Darwin, who shared this assertion: “At Darwin, we’re solely centered on constructing essentially the most progressive software program merchandise for each manufacturers and content material creators. Soham is an extremely gifted engineer and we consider in his talents to assist deliver our merchandise to market.”
‘He actually crushed my interview’
Arkadiy Telegin, co-founder of AI startup Leaping AI, wasn’t shocked when he noticed the now-infamous engineer was trending on X.
Telegin informed Fortune he’d made Parekh a job provide in April after being blown away by the engineer within the interview course of.
“He actually crushed my interview. I interviewed round 50 folks within the prior two weeks earlier than speaking to him and he handed, by far, all the folks I interviewed,” he mentioned. “He additionally was a really likeable particular person.”
“I provided him a wage vary of $160,000 to $200,000 per 12 months base compensation plus fairness starting from round 0.7% to 1.1%, he selected the center of the money and center of the fairness,” Telegin mentioned. “I informed him to come back to San Francisco and we might signal the papers.”
Telegin mentioned Parekh informed him he was within the technique of getting his O-1 visa—a sort of visa reserved for people who possess extraordinary means within the sciences, arts, training, enterprise, or athletics—however wished to contribute remotely whereas he was nonetheless in India. Nevertheless, virtually instantly after the corporate onboarded him, Parekh began behaving unusually.
“He produced and wrote code, however he was insanely sluggish. And there have been all the time these excuses like a flood or the electrical energy went out, after which the [Indo-Pakistan conflict] occurred—however he was so distant from the battle,” Telegin mentioned.
Parekh had informed Telegin he was based mostly in Mumbai, greater than a thousand miles away from the preventing close to Jammu and Kashmir, however later claimed a drone had broken the constructing he lived in.
Telegin mentioned he assumed Parekh was choosing up some work on the facet and determined to formally pay him for his time, with the goal of locking within the engineer solely with a proper full-time employment contract which he would signal when he bought to San Francisco, the place the function was full-time, in-office.
“I believed if I pay him, then it’s official … he’s going to contribute and commit, however he by no means despatched an bill. Ultimately, I didn’t switch him a single greenback, which is essentially the most complicated a part of all of it, as a result of different folks appear to have paid him.”
Founders notice they’re ‘relationship the identical man’
A month later, when Telegin was visiting a fellow founder from his Y Combinator cohort, the pair bought chatting about their AI hiring woes.
The conflict for AI expertise is especially robust on startups proper now as tech firms are competing for an more and more small pool of expertise. Large Tech firms are shelling out eye-watering salaries, making it tough for startups with fewer funds to compete.
“Hiring is the most important drawback for any YC firm, together with us and together with them,” he mentioned. “We’ve been chatting about our hiring pains whereas describing folks we’ve been speaking to, after which we each began describing Soham to one another. Then the subsequent second it was like: ‘Wait, are we relationship the identical man?’”
Later, Telegin realized that his good friend was merely the tip of the iceberg. Inside his YC batch, Soham had interviewed or labored with three different firms.
“It was simply surreal … At some dinner occasions, anyone would begin saying: ‘Oh, I’m interviewing this cool man, he crushed my interview’ after which folks would say in unison: ‘Oh, is it Soham?’ After which the particular person telling the story would freak out, as a result of what the hell is occurring? It’s like a dream,” he mentioned.
“I don’t assume anyone employed him in my batch,” he added. “However he was undoubtedly paid for work trials.”
‘Then the reasons began’
Marcus Lowe, co-founder of Create, additionally had Parekh on the payroll as a full-time impartial contractor for round two weeks earlier this 12 months, throughout which the engineer made one look within the workplace and shipped virtually no code.
“He’s only a actually sturdy engineer and he crushed the interview,” Lowe informed Fortune. “However a few week earlier than he was scheduled to start out, he texted us saying he wanted to go to New York to go to his sister and wanted to push the beginning date again.”
“Then the day earlier than he was supposed to start out, he texted us saying he was feeling sick and wasn’t in a position to are available in, so we pushed again the beginning date once more,” he mentioned.
“By this level, it was really two weeks late earlier than he got here into the workplace for someday and he did good work … then the reasons began once more.”
Lowe had signed Parekh up as an impartial contractor in a deal that included 5 days of in-office work and a base compensation of $150,000. Lowe solely noticed him within the flesh for someday.
Suspicious, he went to Parekh’s GitHub profile to research, noticed he had dedicated code to a different San Francisco-based startup. He went right down to the workplaces to ask if Parekh labored there. He was informed the engineer did, however was out sick.
“Lengthy story brief, we stored pushing him to come back into the workplace, however he by no means did once more. Ultimately, we simply gave him a efficiency dialog and mentioned you’re not transport sufficient code, we’d like you to truly ship,” he mentioned. Parekh by no means did and was later terminated.
One other Silicon Valley-based founder informed Fortune he employed Parekh for a piece trial in 2024 however determined to not transfer ahead with him after it turned clear he couldn’t transfer to the US.
He additionally mentioned there have been points along with his efficiency and a string of what he got here to consider have been routine lies. He paid Parekh $2,400 for the week.
All the founders Fortune spoke to mentioned that they had heard of a number of different incidents the place the engineer was working a couple of job without delay, some so long as three years in the past.
He additionally seems to have had a quick stint at Meta in 2021. Representatives for the corporate didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Fortune.
In a put up on X, Gergely Orosz, a software program engineer and writer of the”The Pragmatic Engineer” publication, mentioned he had “confirmed 10 firms the place [Parekh] was employed and fired for doing nothing (however mendacity to them.) And one other 8 that interviewed him however rejected him (many really feel they’ve wasted their time.) There are doubtless many, many extra.”
