Has Media Coverage of Soham Parekh’s Multiple Jobs Boosted his Career

Two startups seek to hire software engineer Soham Parekh after he was fired for holding multiple jobs

July 9, 2025

Hundreds of employees pursue startup projects in their “spare time,” especially among those working for technology companies in the United States. Notable examples include Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who worked on building a computer, while they were employed at Atari and HP respectively, according to Business Insider. They left their jobs to found Apple.

Last week, Soham Parekh, apparently a talented software engineer in India, found his technology career had nearly ended early, following revelations about his working for multiple firms. Parekh “works at 3-4 startups at the same time,” Suhail Doshi, founder of Playground AI, posted on X/Twitter. “Beware. I fired this guy in his first week and told him to stop lying / scamming people. He hasn’t stopped a year later.” Playground is a San Francisco based startup making AI tools for creating graphics.

Doshi’s post prompted employers to fire Parekh, who is apparently 27-years-old. One of them was AI startup Lindy. “Holy shit. We hired this guy a week ago. Fired this morning. He did so incredibly well in interviews, must have a lot of training. Careful out there,” Lindy founder Flo Crivello posted on X. Lindy is a startup based in San Francisco wokring on automation.

Speaking to the tech show TBPN, Parekh admitted that he worked multiple jobs, 140 hours a week. He said he was not motivated by greed but needed the income since he was in extremely dire financial circumstances. Yet, when the show’s hosts asked why he did not seek a raise in salary from one of his employers, to help him recover financially, Parekh said he liked to separate his professional and private life. Also, Parekh opted for low salaries and high equity from all his employers, raising doubts about his financial struggles.

Parekh is “a very skilled engineer…Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates,” posted an apparent former employer, using the handle gargoyle9123, on Hacker News. The problem with Parekh is that when the work-trial started, “it's just excuses upon excuses as to why he's missing a meeting…The excuses become more ridiculous and unbelievable, up until it's obvious he's just lying.”

Hacker News is a site run by Y Combinator, the leading technology incubator in the U.S. It backed Airbnb, Coinbase, Scale AI, and numerous other startups now valued at more than $1 billion. Several Y Combinator startups interviewed Parekh for jobs.

According to Parekh’s resume, which Doshi shared with The Hindustan Times, companies which employed Parekh include Union.AI, Synthesia, and Alan AI. Parekh claimed he earned an M.S. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020 -2022; and a B.E. in computer engineering, from Mumbai University, 2016-2020.

However, Doshi told The Hindustan Times that 90% of Parekh’s resume seems fake, and most links have been deleted. Indeed, Parekh told TBPN that he did not study in the U.S. In addition to Parekh’s ethical values, this raises questions about the startups where Parekh worked. Why did a staff member not call the Georgia Institute of Technology to verify if Parekh was a graduate? Did the startups hire Parekh, with no serious vetting, merely to show their potential invstors and clients that they have a “full and strong team” of technical talent?

Parekh reached out to Doshi after his post last week. His primary question, Doshi stated in a post on X: “Asking this as genuine advice since I do really love what I do, have I completely sabotaged my career? What can I do to improve my situation? I am also happy to come clean.” Parekh could start by posting an accurate version of his resume.

Evidently, there is big demand for highly skilled software engineers. Last week, at least two startup founders sought to hire Parekh, even after he was fired by previous employers. One of them was Conor Brennan-Burke, founder of Hyperspell. In a post on X, he states, “Hi Soham…We’re hiring engineers right now. Let me know if you are open to a casual chat…” Then, responding to a post, stating “don’t hire low integrity people,” Brennan-Burke commented, Parekh’s “definitely learned his lesson now and is going to work insanely hard to prove everyone wrong massive opportunity to bring on top talent with a chip on their shoulder.”

Also, there were media reports that Parekh was working for Darwin Studios, an AI video remixing startup based in the San Francisco Bay area. However, a post announcing his hiring was quickly deleted by Parekh as well as by Darwin founder and CEO Sanjit Juneja, according to TechCrunch. A spokesperson representing Parekh sent TechCrunch a statement from Juneja: “Soham is an incredibly talented engineer and we believe in his abilities to help bring our products to market.”

Apparently, in addition to being a talented software engineer, Parekh is also skilled at marketing himself as indicated by his finding jobs with numerous startups. Over the past week, his job exploits have gotten him massive publicity. For instance, the X post on Parekh by Doshi has received more than 22 million views. In “classic Silicon Valley fashion, Parekh appears to be trying to turn his viral moment into a business,” notes TechCrunch. “We’ve seen countless startups turn their viral, often controversial, moments into businesses…”

Will Parekh lapse back into his old habits? Or, will he identify and work exclusively for a startup which has the potential to succeed and which makes him a part owner? Or, will he work for startup founders, with few ethical values, who will exploit his talents to enrich themselves?