In a scandal that has sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley, Soham Parekh, an Indian software engineer, has admitted to secretly working full-time for multiple US startups simultaneously, exposing vulnerabilities in remote hiring practices and raising questions about the ethics of “overemployment.”
Multiple Jobs, Multiple Deceptions
The controversy erupted when Suhail Doshi, co-founder of Mixpanel and Playground AI, took to X (formerly Twitter) to issue a stark warning: “PSA: there’s a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups at the same time. He’s been preying on YC companies and more. Beware.”
Suhail revealed that Soham had worked briefly at one of his companies and was fired within his first week. However, the scope of Soham ‘s deception was far more extensive than initially imagined. It was later revealed that Soham juggled roles at around 34 different companies, including Alan AI, Synthesia, DynamoAI and Union.ai, often with overlapping job periods.
Dhruv Amin, co-founder of AI startup Create, provided a detailed account of how Soham operated. His company hired Soham as engineer number five, recommended by a recruiter which “lent legitimacy” to his application. “He was eager and crushed our in person pair programming onsite. I believe he’s actually a good engineer,” Amin shared on X.
However, red flags emerged immediately. Soham called in sick on the very first day of the job and said he would onboard from home, giving his address to ship his laptop. The first warning sign came with the shipping address – instead of providing his home address, Soham asked for his laptop to be shipped to a San Francisco office building that housed industrial spaces and Sync Labs, a YC-backed startup.
Soham’s scheme involved sophisticated misdirection tactics. When Create’s team investigated the shipping address, they discovered he was simultaneously working for Sync Labs. “He then spent 2 days saying he was working on something from home we knew should have taken him 1/2 a day max. always almost ready, just testing something,” Amin explained.
The deception unraveled when Create’s co-founder decided to take over Parekh’s branch to complete blocked work, only to discover that “almost nothing had been done”. When confronted about working for Sync Labs, Soham denied it, but when the co-founder called Sync Labs directly, they confirmed he was working from home that day.
The Financial Desperation Behind the Scheme
In his first public response to the allegations, Soham admitted to the charges during an interview with tech show TBPN. “It is true. I’m not proud of what I’ve done. But, you know, financial circumstances, essentially. No one really likes to work 140 hours a week, right? But I had to do this out of necessity. I was in extremely dire financial circumstances,” he confessed.
The admission painted a picture of desperation rather than malicious intent, highlighting the extreme measures some international workers take to overcome financial hardships in the competitive tech industry.
The scandal has exposed critical vulnerabilities in remote hiring practices, particularly among tech startups. Amin noted that while Soham was a capable engineer, his “biggest mistake was lying repeatedly”. The incident has sparked discussions about the growing trend of “overemployment,” where individuals take multiple remote jobs without disclosing them to employers.
The controversy has raised concerns over the hiring culture, especially among tech startups, that hire people without adequate background checks. As companies increasingly rely on remote work arrangements, the Soham case serves as a wake-up call for implementing more robust verification processes.
This incident reflects broader systemic issues within the tech industry, including the pressures faced by international workers and the challenges of maintaining accountability in remote work environments. While Parekh’s actions were deceptive, they have inadvertently highlighted the need for clearer employment policies and better due diligence in the era of distributed workforces.
