Meet Soham Parekh, the engineer burning through tech by working at three to four startups simultaneously

One sanction is popping up a batch crossed tech startup societal media close now, and you might’ve heard it: Soham Parekh. On X, radical are joking that Parekh is single-handedly holding up all modern integer infrastructure, portion others are posting memes astir him moving successful beforehand of a twelve antithetic monitors oregon filling successful for the thousands of radical that Microsoft conscionable laid off.

From what societal media posts suggest, Parekh is really a bundle technologist who seems to person interviewed astatine dozens of tech startups implicit the years, portion besides juggling aggregate jobs astatine the aforesaid time. Several startups had this revelation connected July 2nd, erstwhile Suhail Doshi, laminitis of the AI plan instrumentality Playground, posted a PSA connected X, saying:

PSA: there’s a feline named Soham Parekh (in India) who works astatine 3-4 startups astatine the aforesaid time. He’s been preying connected YC companies and more. Beware.

I fired this feline successful his archetypal week and told him to halt lying / scamming people. He hasn’t stopped a twelvemonth later. No much excuses.

Doshi’s station was rapidly flooded with replies that included akin stories. “We interviewed this feline too, but caught this during references checks,” Variant laminitis Ben South said. “Turns retired helium had 5-6 profiles each with 5+ places helium really worked at.” When asked what tipped him disconnected astir Parekh, South told The Verge that his suspicions arose during Parekh’s interview, prompting his squad to bash a notation cheque earlier than they usually would. “That’s erstwhile we learned helium was moving aggregate jobs,” South said.

Parekh’s resume and pitch email look bully astatine archetypal glance, which helps him garner involvement from aggregate companies. “He had a prolific GitHub publication graph and anterior startup experience,” Marcus Lowe, laminitis of the AI app builder Create, told The Verge. “He was besides highly technically beardown during our interrogation process.”

Just 1 time aft this each unfolded, Parekh came guardant successful an interrogation with the daily tech amusement TBPN. Parekh confirmed what galore tech startup founders had suspected: helium had been moving for aggregate companies astatine the aforesaid time. “I’m not arrogant of what I’ve done. That’s not thing I endorse either. But nary 1 truly likes to enactment 140 hours a week, I had to bash it retired of necessity,” Parekh said. “I was successful highly dire fiscal circumstances.”

Parekh seems to person made a bully archetypal content connected galore people. Digger CEO Igor Zalutski said his institution “nearly hired him,” arsenic helium “seemed truthful sharp” during interviews, portion AIVideo.com cofounder Justin Harvey similarly said that helium was “THIS adjacent to hiring him,” adding that “he really crushed the interview.” Vapi cofounder Jordan Dearsley said Parekh “was the champion method interview” he’s seen, but helium “did not present connected his projects.” 

The startups that did prosecute Parekh didn’t look to support him around for long. Lowe said that helium noticed thing was disconnected erstwhile Parekh kept making excuses to propulsion backmost his commencement date. After telling Lowe that helium had to hold moving due to the fact that helium had a travel planned to spot his sister successful New York, Parekh aboriginal claimed that helium couldn’t commencement moving pursuing the travel due to the fact that helium was sick. “For immoderate reason, thing conscionable felt off,” Lowe said.

That’s erstwhile Lowe visited Parekh’s GitHub illustration and realized helium was committing codification to a backstage repository during the clip helium was expected to beryllium sick. Lowe besides recovered caller commits to different San Francisco-based startup. “Did immoderate digging, noticed that helium was successful immoderate of their selling materials,” Lowe said. “I was like, ‘Huh, but helium didn’t state this connected his resume. This feels weird.’” Create ended up letting Parekh spell aft helium failed to implicit an assignment.

It looks similar Parekh adjacent had a stint astatine Meta. In 2021, the company published a post highlighting his communicative arsenic a contributor moving connected mixed-reality experiences successful WebXR. In the post, Parekh said that helium recovered “that the champion mode to get amended astatine bundle improvement is to not lone signifier it but to usage it to lick existent satellite problems.” Meta didn’t instantly respond to The Verge’s petition for comment.

Parekh’s purported strategy whitethorn person been uncovered, but his outlook mightiness not beryllium each bad. Parekh said he landed a occupation astatine Darwin, an AI video remixing startup, and the company’s laminitis confirmed it. “Soham is an incredibly talented technologist and we judge successful his abilities to assistance bring our products to market,” Darwin laminitis and CEO Sanjit Juneja said successful a connection to The Verge.

Update, July 3rd: Added a connection from Darwin.