An Indian engineer cries foul after being exposed for using fake resumes to deceive over 10 AI companies in Silicon Valley and getting multiple salaries: "I'm also desperate as I work 140 hours a week."

Now, there's a new topic of conversation for startup founders: whether you've had an "encounter" with an Indian software engineer named Soham Parekh, who was previously unknown.

Over the past few years, Parekh has been simultaneously employed by multiple tech startups in Silicon Valley without these companies being aware of it. On social platforms, people joked that "Parekh single - handedly supports all modern digital infrastructure." Some also posted meme images depicting him working in front of a dozen different monitors or taking over the positions of the thousands of employees recently laid off by Microsoft.

So, how did Parekh successfully maintain his career as a "multiple job - holder"? And why were Silicon Valley tech companies so fond of him?

The Beginning and Unfolding of the Revelation of His "Multiple" Careers

The start of this incident began with a post on the X platform a few days ago by Suhail Doshi, the CEO of the image - generation startup Playground AI. The post started with: "There's an Indian named Soham Parekh who is working for 3 - 4 startups simultaneously. He has long targeted companies incubated by Y Combinator and many other enterprises. Please be vigilant."

Suhail claimed that about a year ago, after discovering that Parekh was also working for other companies, he fired Parekh from Playground AI. "I asked him to stop lying/cheating others, but he didn't stop even after a year," Suhail wrote in the post.

Initially, this post sparked some controversy. After all, in California, where most of the startups that hired Parekh are located, taking a second job (i.e., "moonlighting") is not prohibited, as long as it doesn't conflict with other work obligations. In fact, many entrepreneurs start new companies outside their main jobs, and employers have no right to claim the intellectual property of new projects that are completely independent of an employee's main job.

What's special is that this Indian developer was taking on an unusually high number of jobs simultaneously, and the combined workload of all the positions was obviously impossible to handle. This inevitably made some employers wonder: Why couldn't a seemingly talented engineer complete the work? Suhail also said that his dissatisfaction was not because Parekh was moonlighting, but rather his more fundamental performance issues: "He accomplished nothing and told countless lies."

As of now, this post has received about 20 million views and has prompted several other founders to share their experiences of hiring Parekh.

Matt Parkhurst, the CEO of Antimetal, a startup that uses AI to help companies reduce cloud - service costs, confirmed that Parekh was the first engineer hired by the company in 2022. He said that after realizing Parekh was moonlighting for other companies, Antimetal quickly let him go. Flo Crivello, the CEO of Lindy, a startup that helps users automate work processes through AI, also said that he hired Parekh in recent weeks. Parekh performed excellently in the interview, but the work progress was slow. After seeing Suhail's tweet, he fired Parekh.

Igor Zalutski, the founder of Digger, a Terraform pull - request automation tool, revealed that they fired Parekh a few days after he joined because they found warning signs during the background check. Create, a company that develops an AI - assisted software development platform, also quickly fired Parekh after hiring him. The reason was that Create required on - site work, but Parekh only showed up at its San Francisco office for one day and then often missed work for various reasons.

ComfyUI, an open - source GenAI application, hired Parekh for three weeks in June. The founder of the company said that initially, Parekh performed well in the interview, but the subsequent work situation got out of control. He had difficulty completing the on - boarding tasks, and the services he designed seemed overly complex. Parekh also seemed to have worked at Sync Labs, a startup that develops an AI lip - synching tool. He even starred in the company's promotional video, but he was eventually fired.

According to Doshi, at least ten companies have said they hired but have since fired Parekh. In addition to the above - mentioned companies, there are also the AI graphics editing platform Playground AI, the voice - AI agent developer Leaping AI, the intelligent sales platform Fuse AI for GTM teams, the agent engineering platform Fleet AI, and the video - AI company Ponder.ai.

How Did He Get Offers from Dozens of Companies Simultaneously?

It's worth mentioning that when the incident was exposed, there were still many companies interviewing Parekh or offering him positions.

AIVideo.com, an AI - driven video - production company, said that Parekh performed extremely well in the interview, and the company was once close to hiring him. A company founded by former Warp engineer Michelle Lim had just arranged a three - day paid work trial for Parekh. After the incident was exposed, the trial was cancelled yesterday. The founder of Mosaic AI, a video - editing AI agent company, said that they spent a month interviewing Parekh, and he performed well in the interview.

In addition, Pally AI, an AI customer - relationship management company, was willing to offer Parekh a position as a founding engineer, but in the end, they didn't hire him because he refused the non - negotiable requirement of on - site work.

Facts have proven that Parekh performed well in many interviews and received job offers, largely thanks to his abilities and talents as a software engineer.

On July 3, Roy Lee, the CEO of the AI startup Cluely, posted on X that they had just had a second - round interview with Parekh. Although they didn't hire Parekh in the end, Roy mentioned that Parekh performed extremely well in the interview. He "seemed to have an in - depth understanding of the React framework (a popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces)."

The company also shared the records from the interview process:

Candidate evaluation:

The candidate has a solid knowledge of React and front - end optimization.

The candidate performed well in macro - level answers but stumbled when elaborating on details.

Judging from GitHub and past projects, the candidate has strong DevOps and infrastructure experience.

Reviewing the candidate's GitHub shows a large number of contributions and rich experience.

Comparison of the candidate's technical strength and fit with other candidates.

Discussion of the candidate's background (such as an internship at Meta and an education at the University of Waterloo).

Overall consensus: The candidate is a good fit and has distinct "entrepreneurial" characteristics.

Plan to arrange a follow - up interview for further evaluation.

According to foreign media reports, Rohan Pandey, the founding research engineer of Reworkd, a startup incubated by YC (who has since left the startup), said that he also interviewed Parekh and gave him a "highly competitive" evaluation. Pandey said that in an interview centered around algorithms, Parekh was one of the top three candidates.

However, Pandey said bluntly that the Reworkd team had suspected that Parekh had problems. At that time, Parekh told the company that he was in the United States (which was a requirement for the position), but the company didn't believe it because they ran an IP - tracking tool on his Zoom link and found that Parekh was actually in India. Pandey recalled that many of Parekh's statements were often inconsistent, and some of his GitHub contribution records and past positions were also unreasonable.

Agency, an AI - agent observability startup, also interviewed Parekh. Adam Silverman, the co - founder of the company, said that Parekh sent him a private message asking about job openings at Agency. Then they arranged an interview, during which Parekh rescheduled the interview time five times. Adam also said that he was impressed by Parekh's technical ability, but because Parekh insisted on remote work during the interview, this became a warning sign for Agency.

What Does Parekh Himself Say?

Just now, Parekh appeared on a live - stream podcast, personally telling his career story and explaining why he was working for multiple companies simultaneously.

First, he admitted that he had been working multiple jobs simultaneously since 2022, but claimed that he had never used AI tools or hired junior engineers to help him complete the work.

Parekh believes that these jobs made him a better programmer, but he also paid a price. He mentioned that he was famous among his friends for "not sleeping." In the interview, he repeatedly emphasized that he worked 140 hours a week (equivalent to 20 hours a day without rest) - which seems almost impossible, or at least extremely unhealthy and unsustainable.

He also said that this was not some grand plan. Taking multiple jobs was just to make a lot of money quickly to get out of a bad financial situation. "I really didn't think it through. It was more of an act out of desperation," Parekh said in the live interview.

When the host asked why he didn't just ask one company for a raise to relieve the financial pressure, Parekh said that he preferred to draw a clear line between his professional and private lives. However, he chose low - salary, high - equity compensation in all his jobs, which contradicts the claim of a "financial crisis." But Parekh refused to disclose more details.

Parekh told the host that he really loved his work, not just for the money - he was deeply committed to the missions of all the companies he worked for. In addition, he also admitted that he was not proud of his actions and did not encourage others to follow his example.

According to him, he postponed a graduate program he had been admitted to and instead decided to work for multiple startups simultaneously. It's worth noting that Suhail once shared Parekh's resume, which claimed that he had a master's degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In response, Parekh did not respond to the accusation that most of the content in his resume was fake. Instead, he mentioned: "Interestingly, you know, there are some meme images... I'm new to Twitter (now renamed X). I just registered yesterday, so this is like my introduction to social media." Parekh also said on X, "I don't have a LinkedIn account."

After the Storm, He Lands a Job at a Video - AI Company

After the incident fermented, Parekh announced on X his new employer - Darwin Studios. According to him, this is currently the only company he works for. It is understood that Darwin Studios is a startup dedicated to AI video remixing.

However, he quickly deleted the post after publishing the statement, and Sanjit Juneja, the founder and CEO of Darwin Studios, also deleted the relevant content simultaneously. A spokesperson sent a statement from Darwin Studios to foreign media. Juneja said in it: "Parekh is a highly talented engineer, and we believe he has the ability to help us bring our product to the market."

On July 3, Parekh posted a statement and pinned it. He said, "Now many people are talking about me, but most of you don't know the whole story. One thing you need to know about me is that I love creating. Almost everyone I know and all the companies I've worked for have isolated me, given up on me, and excluded me. But creating is the only thing I really know and the thing I'll continue to do."

At the same time, Parekh announced that he had signed an exclusive founding agreement to become the founding engineer of a company and would only work for this one company. "They are the only team that is currently willing to bet on me. This team is very strong, supports 'outsiders,' and is creating an absolutely disruptive product in the video - AI field."

In subreddit communities such as r/overemployed, members often discuss how to handle multiple remote jobs simultaneously - from this background, the Parekh incident is not entirely unexpected. However, people's evaluations of his actions are significantly divided.

Many people think that Parekh is a liar and a speculator. But in the classic Silicon Valley style, he seems to be trying to turn this "viral" fame into a business opportunity. In the past year, countless startups have turned their controversial "breakout moments" into business capital. One of the most famous examples is Cluely - a company known for creating extremely controversial marketing campaigns. Despite being accused of "provocative marketing," Cluely still received $15 million in seed - round financing.

In the tech community, some people see Parekh as a "folk hero" - believing that he deceived well - funded startups and is a rebellion against authority; others think he is an unethical liar who has harmed startups and taken the positions of people who could have been fully committed to their work.

Many people are also amazed at Parekh's ability to pass so many difficult interviews and even suggest that he turn this "fame" into startup capital.

Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box, wrote on the X platform: "If Parekh immediately confessed and claimed that he was training an AI Agent to handle knowledge work, he could complete a financing round with a pre - valuation of $100 million by the weekend." Chris Bakke, the founder of Laskie, a job - matching platform acquired by X, believes that Parekh should use his reputation: "Parekh should start an interview - training company - he is obviously one of the best interviewees in history. He should publicly admit his mistakes and then focus on his top - 1% area of expertise."

Reference links:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/03/who-is-soham-parekh-the-serial-moonlighter-silicon-valley-startups-cant-stop-hiring/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=EGXyKYWjaG8

https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-10x-overlemployed-engineer?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/03/everyone-in-tech-has-an-opinion-about-soham-parekh/

This article is from the WeChat official account "InfoQ". Compiled by Huawei. Republished by 36Kr with permission