[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
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Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
Soham Parekh is all the rage on Twitter right now with a bunch of
startups coming out of the woodwork saying they either had
currently employed him or had in the past. Serious question: why
aren't so many startups hiring processes filtering out a candidate
who is scamming/working multiple jobs?
Author : jshchnz
Score : 157 points
Date : 2025-07-02 20:28 UTC (2 days ago)
| revskill wrote:
| No surprise, it's all about the cloud driven interview.
|
| Seriously, a good programmer cares about good abstraction, not
| the correct cloud setup.
|
| Those startups are worth the scam, it's skill issue all the way
| down.
| robswc wrote:
| This is my question too.
|
| I'm no longer job searching but every interview involved multiple
| steps and "background checks."
|
| I'm seeing the dude's resume has him working half a dozen jobs in
| a year which even to me is a huge red flag. Then he has a github
| with automated commits... I don't want to be disparaging to start
| ups because its brutal out there but how does someone like that
| have such a high success rate? Is he taking a super low salary or
| something?
| robswc wrote:
| To add to this. It would be great to see which companies he
| interviewed at but didn't get the job. Would argue those
| companies have better BS-detectors conducting the interviews.
| deepsun wrote:
| Background checks come in different varieties, usually it's
| criminal and global watchlist checks. Employment and education
| check is couple $$ extra for the employer, and some employers
| really don't mind.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| age
| gk1 wrote:
| It's also possible to "freeze" your employment history report
| just like you can freeze your credit report. Which prevents
| even companies with the wherewithal to do an employment
| history check from getting that information.
| deepsun wrote:
| Interesting, how do to that "freeze"? I thought it's all
| data brokers I don't have any leverage on.
| gk1 wrote:
| https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze
| FireBeyond wrote:
| You have to do it via a mailed-in form, but I did, and
| got a confirmation letter back. I haven't assessed the
| efficacy of it, but supposedly mine is.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| For my last job -- the guy who was supposed to verify my
| permanent address called me and asked me to ask someone in my
| village to take a photo of the house with same day newspaper in
| the view and send it to him. I forwarded the request to my
| future employer asking whether it was the normal verification
| procedure :-)
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Unicorns are easier to find than newspapers. If you threaten
| to shoot me unless I bring newspaper - I am not even sure
| where they sell them anymore in my city.
| Aurornis wrote:
| On Twitter some of the founders discussed this. He would give
| references to people who answered the phone and then praised
| his work generically. One person said they thought it was
| strange that both of his reference checks seemed like really
| young guys, but it's the startup world so they overlooked it.
|
| There was one Tweet from someone who said they did a reference
| check from someone who said he did good work when he was
| working, but he was working multiple jobs at the same time so
| he wasn't working much. Maybe he assumed his references
| wouldn't be checked often, and maybe he was right?
| bibek_poudel wrote:
| I read through one of his emails. This guy is great at
| communicating his interest and signaling himself as a "high
| performer".
|
| Perhaps, he is also genuinely good at cracking these interviews.
| No wonder, he's been through so many of them.
| mathiaspoint wrote:
| Interviewing really is a distinct skill from contributing and
| the more people crank it the more it seems to test for
| interview ability.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I suspect (and have seen some evidence) that the interviews
| he aced were algo-based. Doing well in these is very
| repeatable, with low additional effort. Behavioural are much
| harder to do at scale.
| alpb wrote:
| this email?
| https://x.com/var_epsilon/status/1940492841232584745
| mpeg wrote:
| That's a particularly terrible cold email, you can tell he
| didn't even bother applying some basic personalisation to it
| outside of [COMPANY_NAME]
| sreekanth850 wrote:
| Nutshell: Toxic founders who want developers to code 24X7
| may hired him seeing this.
| anon_2222 wrote:
| ding ding ding. both soham + recruiter implied he
| basically just codes day and night. our founder (yc) was
| drooling! there's a very specific type of company +
| founder that falls for this stuff. no surprise he
| targeted ai startups.
| ATechGuy wrote:
| Looks like he has cracked the hiring playbook. I wouldn't be
| surprised if Zuck came forward and said they also hired SP for
| their ASI team.
| jasonthorsness wrote:
| He should pivot to giving talks on landing an interview and
| interviewing
| occamsrazorwit wrote:
| Cluely should reach out to him for a sponsorship deal.
| godelmachine wrote:
| The Wolf of YC Street.
| thisisit wrote:
| Exactly my thoughts after listening to founders saying he
| crushes all the interviews.
| Aurornis wrote:
| You the phrase about how when something becomes a metric it
| ceases to be a useful measure because everyone starts gaming
| it?
|
| The same goes for hiring tricks. When some hiring signal
| becomes a trick that gets passed around by influencers, it
| ceases to become a useful hiring signal because everyone is
| gaming it.
|
| If this guy started advertising his process, everyone would
| start doing his process and it would stop working.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You can proselytize all you want for thousands of years and
| you will never convert the whole world at once.
| pxc wrote:
| It also doesn't matter if his tricks stop being effective
| if he can still sell them effectively. He doesn't care
| about integrity, clearly, so that wouldn't be a problem for
| him.
| asdf6969 wrote:
| Not true or else leetcode would be gone. They made a lot of
| money off the old paradigm and somebody will certainly take
| advantage of whatever comes next
| seydor wrote:
| who says he isn't
| jm20 wrote:
| Odds are this is a dev shop with more than one person doing at
| least some things. It would explain how "he" was able to get so
| many jobs and maintain appearances. And a lot of startups don't
| have the best screening processes to begin with (have a beer with
| a founder, check out their source code, you're hired!). This is
| exactly the place where the structure and processes of larger
| companies can be a benefit. And even then, people work multiple
| jobs and get away with it. It's become popular post COVID.
|
| Given these two factors, I don't think it would be out of the
| realm of possibility for something like this to happen.
| meistertigran wrote:
| Think so too. Also because different companies have different
| "reviews" of his work. Some saying he was only good at
| interviews, others saying the quality of work was good. Must
| have been diffferent people working.
| darth_aardvark wrote:
| How do you explain multiple places with in office work
| corroborating that he came into the office?
| jonathan-adly wrote:
| Lots of YC companies copy each other process and selection
| criteria. Basically- they all have the same blind spots and look
| for the same type of engineer.
|
| So, super easy to scam all of them with the same skillset and
| mannerism.
| dazzeloid wrote:
| he's a really talented engineer, crushed our interviews. the
| funny thing was that he actually had multiple companies on his
| linkedin at the same time, including ours. we just thought they
| must have been internships or something and he never updated them
| (he felt a bit chaotic). but then it turned out he was working at
| all of them simultaneously.
|
| worked for us for almost a year and did a solid job (we also let
| him go when we discovered the multiple jobs)
| robswc wrote:
| Did he just lie and say he wasn't working at those places? Or
| did the question never come up?
|
| When I used to interview I always had to check a box that said
| I wasn't currently employed, or they would ask at some point.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| Why would you let him go if he was doing a solid job?
| deepsun wrote:
| Sometimes it's NDA. Depends on what company does, but it's
| hard to imagine a product that does not compete with e.g.
| Google.
| avmich wrote:
| Yeah, this looks like a cargo culting. Don't need work, need
| the guy to belong only to them...
| cududa wrote:
| It's called team building. You can believe in it or not.
| You can join a company that values that, or not.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| Where is the line between team and cult?
|
| Cults are a subset of teams.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > Where is the line between team and cult?
|
| Typically employers pay you and cults don't.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| Cults can provide food, housing, and pay.(scientology
| employs alot of its members)
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Why do you need to draw a line? Can there be good cults
| and bad teams?
|
| Both have implicit contracts, and a contract requires
| consideration on both sides. The parties define the value
| of the consideration, so you can have a junior cult
| member who feels they are getting good value for what
| they pay, or a SW dev at an insurance company who feels
| they don't. I also don't see much difference in your
| ability to affect your situation if you are unhappy with
| the current state.
| gk1 wrote:
| People who practice overemployment delude themselves that
| multiple jobs doesn't affect their performance and
| therefore there's nothing wrong with working multiple jobs.
| Their subreddit is a dumbfounding echo chamber.
|
| I had an "over-employed" person on my team (who lied about
| it) and I can confirm what all others are saying about this
| guy: they start going AWOL, miss important discussions,
| miss deadlines, blame their colleagues (creating toxic
| culture), start doing shoddy work because they're not
| thinking deeply through problems and also to keep
| expectations low, create busywork for others to take the
| pressure off themselves, use company resources and accounts
| for other projects (creating security issues, among
| others)... just to name a few reasons.
|
| It's not about possessiveness. Many co's are glad to hire
| contractors, who don't "belong" to them.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > People who practice overemployment delude themselves
| that multiple jobs doesn't affect their performance and
| therefore there's nothing wrong with working multiple
| jobs. Their subreddit is a dumbfounding echo chamber.
|
| It blows my mind that overemployed people have become
| folk heroes. They're obviously not putting full effort
| into two jobs.
|
| I had the same experience as you with an "overemployed"
| person: Working with them is really bad for everyone
| else. They lie, play extreme politics, throw teammates
| under the bus, make you work harder for everything, and
| they don't care if it causes you harm because you're just
| a temporary coworker at one of their "Js"
|
| There's nothing to celebrate about these people. They
| screw over their teammates far more than the company they
| work for.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Most people are not putting full effort into their jobs,
| which is why we are considered heros.
|
| So you could fight us, but plenty just join us in playing
| games, lowering expectations, and collecting their check
| and going home. We are awful colleagues if you have
| ambition, but if you do not, we get along fine with
| people.
| ponector wrote:
| > It blows my mind that overemployed people have become
| folk heroes. They're obviously not putting full effort
| into two jobs
|
| What blows my mind is people think overemployment of an
| engineer is bad, but it is more than acceptable for CEO
| to held top positions in different companies.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| CEOs get fired too when a board with sufficient power
| doesn't feel like they are performing.
|
| The difference is in most cases the CEO owns the business
| or a good chunk of it so they're actually capital owners
| and employees in name only. If you own the business you
| make the rules.
| more_corn wrote:
| It's not acceptable
| toast0 wrote:
| I mean, most of my experience with large companies is
| that things are usually better for my team when the
| executive team is leaving us alone. A note here and there
| is nice; but any more focus and it's not great... better
| for everyone if they're busy doing something else. :P
| dakiol wrote:
| I think you just described most of the C level executives
| in the tech industry. They leave companies behind
| destroyed, with a big pay check. But it's unethical if
| simple engineers do it. Sure.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Not sure what your direct experience is, but the
| difference I've experienced first hand is that C-suite
| are INTENSELY focused on the single company but only for
| a relatively short period of time. They're not spread too
| thin; they're motivated solely by short-term incentives.
| An OE engineer is both, and we can agree they all suck
| for people who want to do meaningful work and build an
| awesome team - but they seem very different to me.
| asdf6969 wrote:
| How often do people put full effort into even one job? I
| do enough to move my career forward and to keep myself
| employed. Everything else is just working for free.
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| > It blows my mind that overemployed people have become
| folk heroes. They're obviously not putting full effort
| into two jobs.
|
| What about people that put full effort and then some into
| jobs with long hours and loads of stress just to get hit
| with a PIP or get caught in the latest round of layoffs?
|
| If that's how companies treat people, what's so wrong
| with 'overemployed' people having a fallback, especially
| in today's market?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| This is a really good perspective, and I've seen a
| similar impact from "under employed" members of my teams.
| We have group-level product managers who have several
| scrum team-level PMs under them. The idea is they keep
| broader alignment and bigger-picture consistency, but
| when they don't spend time with each of the scrum teams,
| or miss planning meetings and important discussions the
| teams pay the price from lack of communication,
| coordination and a shared understanding.
| Aurornis wrote:
| When we had an OE person they could do good work if you gave
| them a lot of time, but getting them to communicate and be
| present with the team was hell. You had to always be tracking
| them down, getting them to respond, and working any meetings
| (which we had few of) into some narrow time slot where they
| were available.
|
| It also drags everyone else down. The team figures out what's
| going on. They get tired of adjusting their communication
| around the one person who's always distracted and doing
| something else.
|
| Basically, it turns into a lot of work for everyone else to
| get work out of the OE person. Like they _can_ do good work,
| but they 're going to make everyone else work hard to extract
| it from them because they're busy juggling multiple jobs.
|
| All of the Soham stories I've read today have been the same:
| Good work when he was working, but he was caught because he
| wasn't working much.
| nickip wrote:
| How was he talented? All the stories are the same. "Talented"
| etc. But then it leads to he never did any work. How can you
| assess his talent?
| FootballBat wrote:
| All I hear is "really good at interviewing."
| thepasswordis wrote:
| The people assessing his talent are falling for the same
| delusion as the people conducting the interview.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If passing their interviews isn't the same as being a good
| developer, then those people have to not only admit that
| the people they hire may not be good at the jobs they are
| hired for but they themselves aren't good at the job they
| sell themselves as doing. It's obviously easiest to accept
| an explanation that doesn't require them to reach that
| conclusion.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| in fairness to some interview processes there are ways
| you could legit pass a valid interview and then short
| change the job. We do a problem scenario / proposed
| solution that's shared a few days in advance. Good
| candidates (and good frauds) can ace this with strong
| technical skills, relevant experience and maybe an hour
| or so of prep time. We'd take this as strong signal,
| because (and I'd hope more companies do this) we're
| optimizing for talented candidates, not minimizing people
| who are going to work multiple concurrent jobs.
| georgemcbay wrote:
| > but they themselves aren't good at the job they sell
| themselves as doing.
|
| In my opinion and experience, being a competent developer
| and being a good interviewer are even less related than
| being a competent developer and being a good interviewee
| (and the latter are already very unrelated).
| icedchai wrote:
| Perhaps he's talented at interviewing? Turns out this is the
| only skill you really need...
| StackRanker3000 wrote:
| > worked for us for almost a year and did a solid job
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| > he's a really talented engineer, crushed our interviews.
|
| Think it says a lot about this industry if "really talented
| 'engineer'" means passing loads of gamified interviews and not
| delivering things on time.
| StackRanker3000 wrote:
| But the person you're responding to said he did a solid job
| for almost a year.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| All anecdotes I see about this dude is: "we hired him and he did
| a fantastic job, but once we found out he had multiple employment
| we fired him".
|
| ... why? If the guy's doing well by all metrics and not leaking
| IP, literally, who cares?
| spwa4 wrote:
| He's not going to get much sympathy. Because:
|
| 1) from the employer side, this runs afoul of all MBA theory
| and practice, so he could have been more profits. Almost by
| definition, this means you're not getting the maximum out of
| the guy. Oh and there's jealousy of course.
|
| 2) from employee's side, this runs afoul of union thinking.
| Those jobs could have employed 5 people, maybe more. Oh and
| there's jealousy of course.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| This shouldn't come as a revelation, but it's risky to employ
| people of low character. There's the risk of theft, lawsuits,
| etc - not to mention, nobody needs the frustration of dealing
| with lies and flakiness.
| soneca wrote:
| I saw several anecdotes that were: "when he did the job, it was
| great, but he rarely did the job because there was always
| someone sick, meeting with a lawyer, or any excuse to not
| deliver".
|
| So I think that finding about multiple employment is actually
| about realizing he was lying the whole time with the excuses.
| Aurornis wrote:
| None of the anecdotes I saw say that.
|
| All of them say he did good work when he was working, but it
| was obvious that he was trying to do it as a part-time job.
| karel-3d wrote:
| We had a guy like that... the thing is you cannot really pass
| any responsibility on him because he will eventually be
| distracted with other stuff. You will never know when you have
| him 100%. You don't want to keep checking on your employees
| week by week day by day, if they deliver.
|
| You need some degree of trust in your employees (you cannot
| "verify" all the time), and you cannot trust some guy you KNOW
| is cheating on you.
| rpcorb wrote:
| Wrong. Many anecdotes say, "He was scamming us in the first
| week."
| suyash wrote:
| It just shows how most startups don't have a good vetting system
| in place.
| rincebrain wrote:
| I would imagine that a lot of the job background check processes
| can be somewhat fuzzy - it's too much time and too unreliable to
| try asking actual startups if someone is employed there
| currently, particularly outside of the US, and it wouldn't even
| really tell you what you wanted to know if someone is saying
| they'll leave their current job for you.
|
| (Hell, every so often various companies randomly decide that I
| and someone with almost the same full name as I are the same
| person, even without that person ever having had an account with
| the company, and then it's a pain to straighten it out because
| they all claim they have no insight into where those black box
| systems pull this information...yes, I'm really quite sure that I
| did not have a lease on this kind of car before I was born.)
|
| Doubly so, I imagine, if you're not in the US, depending on
| whether you're an actual FTE or a contractor or what.
|
| I find it hard to be sympathetic to the companies though, really
| - given how quickly the organizations that love to use family
| metaphors and imagery to describe their culture will drop people
| if it's inconvenient for the company, I don't think they get to
| cry foul on someone thinking they're entitled to the work as
| promised and nothing else.
| gargoyle9123 wrote:
| We hired Soham.
|
| I can tell you it's because he's actually a very skilled
| engineer. He will blow the interviews completely out of the
| water. Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates -- other startups
| will tell you this as well.
|
| The problem is when the job (or work-trial in our case) actually
| starts, it's just excuses upon excuses as to why he's missing a
| meeting, or why the PR was pushed late. The excuses become more
| ridiculous and unbelievable, up until it's obvious he's just
| lying.
|
| Other people in this thread are incorrect, it's not a dev. shop.
| I worked with Soham in-person for 2 days during the work-trial
| process, he's good. He left half of each day with some excuse
| about meeting a lawyer.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The problem is when the job (or work-trial in our case)
| actually starts, it's just excuses upon excuses as to why he's
| missing a meeting, or why the PR was pushed late. The excuses
| become more ridiculous and unbelievable, up until it's obvious
| he's just lying.
|
| I worked with an overemployed person (not Soham). It was
| exactly like this.
|
| Started out great. They could do good work when they knew they
| were in focus. Then they started pushing deliverables out
| farther and farther until it was obvious they weren't trying.
| Meetings were always getting rescheduled with an array of
| excuses. Lots of sad stories about family members having
| tragedies over and over again.
|
| It wears everyone down. Team mates figure it out first.
| Management loses patience.
|
| Worst part is that one person exhausts the entire department's
| trust. Remote work gets scrutinized more. Remote employees are
| tracked more closely. It does a lot of damage to remote work.
|
| > Other people in this thread are incorrect, it's not a dev.
| shop. I worked with Soham in-person for 2 days during the work-
| trial process, he's good.
|
| I doubt it's a dev shop because the dev shops use rotating
| stand-ins to collect the paychecks, not the same identity at
| every job. This guy wanted paychecks sent directly to him.
|
| However, I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to hire other devs
| to outsource some of his workload while he remained the
| interaction point with the company.
|
| > He left half of each day with some excuse about meeting a
| lawyer.
|
| Wild to be cutting work trial days in half to do other jobs.
| Although I think he was also testing companies to see who was
| lenient enough to let him get away with all of this.
| gyomu wrote:
| > However, I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to hire other
| devs to outsource some of his workload while he remained the
| interaction point with the company.
|
| What a silly waste of his time and reputation (in addition to
| other people's).
|
| If he's that competent, he could hire/mentor juniors and just
| use his skills to run a contracting business and keep making
| big bucks while not having to lie all the time?
| Aurornis wrote:
| > If he's that competent, he could hire/mentor juniors and
| just use his skills to run a contracting business and keep
| making big bucks while not having to lie all the time?
|
| I've worked with several small contracting businesses,
| including some that came highly recommended.
|
| They were all very inefficient relative to having someone
| in-house. They also came with the problem that
| institutional knowledge was non-existent because they had a
| rotating crew of people working for you.
|
| Hiring someone in-house is more efficient and better for
| building institutional knowledge. The companies he applied
| for specifically did not want to contract the work out to a
| body shop.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| You just described why consulting makes big bucks
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > Hiring someone in-house is more efficient and better
| for building institutional knowledge.
|
| Then make it part of the contracting deal that the
| contractors have to give the in-house people sufficient
| training about the code/project that they worked on.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| That's what happens when you hire bad contractors. There
| are so many bad contractors and selection bar for
| contractors is much lower compared to employees.
|
| If you keep your standards high when hiring contractors
| you'll get the same level of quality you have with
| employees. Contractor agencies are also pretty happy to
| have long lasting clients (I have been with my current
| clients respectively for: 4 years, 3 years, 1 years and 1
| month).
| tomp wrote:
| > If he's that competent, he could hire/mentor juniors and
| just use his skills to run a contracting business and keep
| making big bucks while not having to lie all the time?
|
| Much _much_ easier said than done.
|
| 99% of companies that want to hire employees won't hire a
| contractor/consultant instead for that job.
|
| How do I know? 15 years experience, top candidate in many
| interviews, great salary / employment. Yet every time I've
| tried to get a consulting arrangement set up it's been
| extremely hard and ultimately unprofitable (i.e. pays
| significantly less than full-time job, on average).
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > How do I know? 15 years experience, top candidate in
| many interviews, great salary / employment. Yet every
| time I've tried to get a consulting arrangement set up
| it's been extremely hard and ultimately unprofitable
| (i.e. pays significantly less than full-time job, on
| average).
|
| Sounds like a legit negotiation strategy:
|
| - You prefer a consulting arrangement over being hired.
|
| - The company prefers to pay less for the job.
|
| So both involved sides get a part of the pie that is
| negotiated about, and has to compromise on another
| aspect.
| saulpw wrote:
| You say this like you can just talk with the VP and CFO
| and have a nuts and bolts conversation about big systems
| things as an pre-hire IC. You can't negotiate with even
| medium-sized companies at that level. They have a fixed
| idea of what the 'role' looks like, and almost always
| it's full-time, long-term. You can negotiate maybe 10-25%
| salary increase, but that's it. Good luck even getting
| more PTO (the "standard" amount is always "generous" and
| if you got more it would complicate "team dynamics").
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| I wanted to explain from a purely economic perspective
| why if you want a consulting role instead of a full-time
| job, you will likely be paid much less.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I think this is a US specific thing.
|
| I work as a contractors with all my clients (who know of
| each others) and they all pay significantly more per hour
| compared to an employee. As an employee I could expect to
| make 1/4 of what I actually make.
|
| The only exception in this arrangement was when I worked
| with an US company, they wanted to hire me as an employee
| and paid 1k per month to some company in my country just
| to hire me. An insane waste of money, not to mention
| taxes on my side.
| mh- wrote:
| US tech salaries are so much higher [at tech companies]
| that it closes much of the gap on how much more you could
| earn in a consulting arrangement.
| altairprime wrote:
| Yes: US salary costs include having to pay healthcare
| fees (it's not universal here), so work contracted prices
| are generally discounted by that amount relative to
| salaries.
| snthpy wrote:
| Do employment contracts in the US not normally have "sole
| focus" clauses? We have those in my location.
| gk1 wrote:
| I don't think so. Or at most it talks about "reasonable
| effort" or something vague like that.
|
| /someone who discovered an over-employed person on his team
| and wondered the same thing
| snthpy wrote:
| Fascinating. My locality is usually kinda lax but it's
| something that we have.
|
| I would have thought that with the litigious culture in the
| US and non-competes etc... this would all be watertight.
| Seems kinda ridiculous that with a non-compete you can't
| work for a competitor once you've quit but you're free to
| do so while you still work for your employer, lol.
| FootballBat wrote:
| Employment contracts in the US are rare.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Employment contracts that are reduced to a single explicit
| written agreement are relatively rare in the US, most
| employment contracts are implied by conduct.
| snthpy wrote:
| Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| A lot of people think of "contract" as specifically a
| written document, but that's not what a "contract" is in
| law, the written document (if it exists) can be very
| powerful evidence that (1) there is a contract, and (2)
| what its terms are, but contracts exist without them.
|
| While US employment is usually at will without a defined
| contract _term_ , there are mutually enforceable
| obligations, including some definition of what the
| employee is obligated to do for the employer and that the
| employer is obligated to pay the employee at some
| specified rate assuming the employee's obligations are
| met. That's a contract. Exactly what the detailed terms
| are may be difficult to prove absent a single
| comprehensive written document, but it is a contract.
| lproven wrote:
| > Employment contracts in the US are rare.
|
| Really? Does that mean what it say: you get a job and you
| do not get a written contract?
|
| I don't think, in 38 years of working in 3 different
| countries, I've _ever_ NOT had a written contract, even for
| temp or contractor roles. WTAF?
| brudgers wrote:
| Yes, really.
|
| Executives can be an exception.
|
| Exceptional circumstances are an exception.
|
| Increasingly less common union jobs are an exception.
|
| But 'at will' is far more common in the US.
| lproven wrote:
| Good grief. I knew the US was still in the 19th century
| as far as gun control, healthcare, and holiday time went,
| but I didn't know it extended to employment law. :-(
| toast0 wrote:
| For established companies, I've always had a written
| employment agreement which discussed some terms common to
| all employees, including anti-moonlighting, usually ip
| assignment, etc. But I don't think I've ever had a
| contract that described what I going to do... maybe when
| I worked for a school district, but there my position
| title didn't actually match the work anyway; the position
| title was about being a tech helper in the classroom, but
| my position was at the district office with field work
| that only rarely had interaction with students.
| lproven wrote:
| I am shocked, and FWIW so is my wife (Czech) and my
| elderly mum.
| icedchai wrote:
| I have seen that in employment paperwork at a few companies.
| Generally, you just mention you have side jobs and they okay
| it. Or you ignore it entirely and nobody notices.
| hilux wrote:
| I think Google has that.
|
| Possibly these are becoming more common because of
| /r/overemployed.
|
| Most companies don't want you working another W-2 job, but
| realize they can't just ban all consulting.
| javagram wrote:
| I think an copyright/IP assignment contract is standard in
| many or most U.S. software jobs, at least when working for
| a big enough company that they have a lawyer who handles
| the NDA/employment paperwork.
|
| That pretty much automatically rules out over employment
| because you can't separately promise two different
| companies that you're assigning all software copyrights to
| them rather than you, it's an incompatible contract (even
| if it's limited to work hours - you're pretending to both
| companies that you're working 9-5 solely for them).
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| A large percentage of U.S. software jobs (and probably
| nearly all YCombinator startups) are in California. Other
| states might be different, but stuff you do outside of
| work doesn't automatically become your employer's IP in
| California.
|
| There are some nuances and I'm not a lawyer, but the gist
| of it is that three ways to trigger the IP to attach to
| your employer:
|
| 1. You do it on-prem or during work hours (but work hours
| are flexible for salaried employees)
|
| 2. You do it using company equipment (say, company laptop
| at home)
|
| 3. It's reasonably related to what you or other people do
| at your day job
|
| If none of those apply, then you own it. That's relevant
| to the discussion at hand because, at least in
| California, you could work from home for two companies
| with unrelated businesses and not break any rules.
| immibis wrote:
| You can do anything - the question is whether you'll get
| caught and then whether you'll get punished. Does the
| employer have anything to gain by suing the employee in
| these cases?
|
| All successful big tech businesses - all of them - got
| that way by openly breaking laws. They don't trigger
| automatically, but upon a manual review, triggered by
| someone with at least a couple grand to spend on the
| endeavour. A _lot_ flies under the radar in practice.
| roll20 wrote:
| did you notice any hints of him cheating on the interview with
| LLMs? If he's actually that good for real, I'm surprised why he
| won't want to do it legit, he'd go way further than scamming
| people
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If he's actually that good for real, I'm surprised why he
| won't want to do it legit, he'd go way further than scamming
| people
|
| If you can get and hold dozens of concurrent full-time
| engineering jobs by scamming people, you can get much further
| much more quickly than is possible in any one of the full-
| time engineering jobs you can get.
|
| This is obviously unethical, relies on non-guaranteed
| success, and falls apart if people are able to effectively
| claw back your gains from scamming, but that's not
| (obviously) enough to outweigh the desire for quick returns
| for some people.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > effectively claw back your gains from scamming
|
| Do you really think several busy startups are going to band
| up and sue a person (esp in California)?
| anon_2222 wrote:
| we interviewed him and passed. he was horrible. it blows my
| mind seeing these reports of him crushing interviews and being
| a great dev. the bar for programmers is woefully low. on second
| thought there's got to be more to this story because he came to
| us through a recruiter who talked him up big time. did he come
| to you through a recruiter too? if so then either the recruiter
| is in on it or he has an army of different recruiters getting
| him in front of yc people. also you say you worked with him in
| person but other reports say he was in india. something not
| adding up here. i can verify my story by giving you the Nth
| character of the quirky email address he uses. can you do the
| same?
| anukin wrote:
| It's probably because the interview process relied heavily on
| leetcode questions. If it did, one can effectively prepare
| for that and only that and can be overemployed.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Is it still common to ask leetcode questions during
| interview?
| Sevii wrote:
| Leetcode questions are still the primary way to test
| skill in interviews.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Where? I have candidates solve a real closed-ended
| problem in the space we're working in. I also give them a
| lot of source code to read and respond to and find issues
| with.
| johanyc wrote:
| most medium to large size companies
| wanderlust123 wrote:
| No explanation has been provided to show hes good at
| leetcode either.
| NameForComment wrote:
| > I can tell you it's because he's actually a very skilled
| engineer. He will blow the interviews completely out of the
| water. Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates -- other
| startups will tell you this as well.
|
| It is hilarious that companies that hired a guy who was
| scamming them are also convinced they are great at assessing
| the skill level of devs.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Being a good developer and being a scammer are completely
| uncorrelated variables.
|
| Someone can be a good developer and also be a scammer. I
| don't understand why you think this is hilarious or weird.
| conartist6 wrote:
| It's hilarious because companies use such scammable ways to
| define who is "top 0.1%"
|
| Also there's a ton amazing engs out there who want and need
| work but the companies all only want that one "perfect" guy
| (or gal), as if such a thing exists
| kgwgk wrote:
| > Being a good developer and being a scammer are completely
| uncorrelated variables.
|
| One could expect good developers to be less inclined to
| fraud as they may not "need" it as much.
|
| That also made me thing of Berkson's paradox:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox
|
| If these were really independent traits they would look
| negatively correlated as we talk about people who are good
| OR scammers.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| It's not about need, it's about beating the system. The
| "hack".
| kgwgk wrote:
| The "need" of beating the system. Good developers may or
| may not have a lower deficit of "it".
| immibis wrote:
| IMO being a good corporate developer is not very
| correlated with being a good "hacker" (finding ways to
| exploit systems). They may be correlated a little but not
| very. Being a good startup founder is probably correlated
| with being a good hacker, much more than being a good
| corporate developer is. Startups have to find and exploit
| niches.
| rpcorb wrote:
| Exactly. It's so bleak that this industry throws integrity
| out the window in the name of productivity.
| mkipper wrote:
| Is it so hard to believe that someone can be a great
| candidate in an interview when you're getting 100% of their
| attention and then be horrible at their job when you're
| getting 20% of it because they're juggling 5 jobs?
| ojr wrote:
| he had no proof he can code, no projects, no github, only
| hired because he gave them a lowball offer, it was lowball
| because he was scamming
| sbmthakur wrote:
| With due respect, they probably just asked leetcode-esque and
| sys design questions.
| wanderlust123 wrote:
| There's literally no evidence they did either of these
| things. I really hope these companies can explain their
| hiring process as it reflects badly on them that they keep
| calling him top 0.1% without any explanation of their
| process.
| hooloovoo_zoo wrote:
| The had 100 candidates and hired him. Top 1% QED. (/s)
| mpeg wrote:
| I don't doubt he's in the 1% or 0.1% of candidates you're
| interviewing, but there is one very simple solution startups
| could apply to make it easier to find top talent -> remove "US
| ONLY" from their job listings.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| You might not be aware, but hiring outside of the country
| causes a whole slew of other points of friction and
| complexity. It actually isn't "one very simple solution" in
| practice, which is why many startups don't do it.
| mpeg wrote:
| I have done it as a hiring manager, it's really not that
| hard.
|
| 1. You can use an employer of record service which costs a
| few hundred bucks a month - it seems like a lot... but if
| I'm already paying a recruiter PS12 to PS25k to find me a
| senior data engineer in London on PS80 to 120k that is
| going to want to WFH 3/4 days a week, I will gladly pay
| PS400/mo for an EOR service
|
| 2. You can also not hire them, and use their services as
| independent contractors instead. I've never had an issue
| doing this with my finance teams, as long as the contractor
| submits a valid invoice they don't care who they are. Plus,
| it's good for cashflow (net 30 to net 90 is pretty
| standard) and the hire gets a nice tax save on their end.
|
| I do understand that at large companies it can be tricky,
| but IMHO at startups there is little excuse. I suppose it
| all doesn't matter if you're playing with unlimited silicon
| valley VC money, I've only ever had to deal with european
| investors and they love a bit of smart frugality.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Oh so you're not American but you're explaining how
| obvious it is that American companies should hire outside
| of America
|
| I agree if I had the UK talent pool domestically,
| European investors, a different health insurance regime,
| and existed in a different timezone, the calculus might
| be different.
|
| Aside: how many people were at the company where you were
| paying recruiters $25k to find people?
| aristofun wrote:
| > he's actually a very skilled engineer
|
| By that you mean more like "he is top 0.1% at leetcode and
| whatever broken hiring process we have" ?
|
| Why would really top 0.1% engineer go for all the hustle with
| small startups. If he could score a single job at some
| overfunded AI company and get even more with less risks?
|
| This doesn't add up at all, sorry.
| ivape wrote:
| Well. Was George Santos an anomaly or proving of a hypothesis?
| If the hypothesis were structured like so:
|
| _If we have a pile of shit, surely shit eaters will be
| attracted to it_
|
| In which case George Santos is just a very testable hypothesis
| (it's like watching a 5 year old walk up to a cookie jar when
| the adults are gone). Congress attracts a certain type. _What
| did you attract and why_ is an unavoidable question. In fact,
| it 's scientific. You would think tech people would recognize
| the locust of non technical people entering the industry as
| some kind of an indicator, some measurable thing ...
|
| We need to run more formal scientific experiments to document
| what happened in this industry.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Source: anonymous account created one day ago.
|
| k
| aprdm wrote:
| > Easily top 1% or top 0.1% of candidates
|
| How do you measure that ? It seems like he wasn't a good
| candidate after all. I hope y`all learn a lesson about hiring
| and moving away from things that aren't signal to a job.
| wanderlust123 wrote:
| What was your interview process like? I think that would be
| helpful information in helping design a better vetting
| procedure to avoid this in the future.
| baceituno wrote:
| We interviewed him. He actually had solid full-stack skills. But
| it was obvious he had other stuff going on. Hence, we didn't take
| him.
| agnishom wrote:
| How was it obvious?
| Bjorkbat wrote:
| Honestly feels like the whole Soham Parekh thing on Twitter is
| one giant joke with the one sincere / honest remark being the
| original from @Suhail.
|
| Like, I can't wrap my head around this many people having some
| kind of experience with a single guy who's claim to be fame is
| basically gaming the interview process at an incredible amount of
| Y Combinator startups.
| occamsrazorwit wrote:
| Yeah, I'm surprised someone who's been working at over 50
| companies in only 3 years wasn't caught sooner. Some of the
| stories are wild enough that they had to have been shared with
| others at the time.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Founders don't like to go around advertising that they got
| tricked by a scammer. They're trying to impress everyone and
| raise money. Telling the whole world that you got scammed is
| not a good look.
| data_yum_yum wrote:
| Bigger question is do you think he really wants everyone on the
| Internet targeting him one way or another?
|
| Why didn't he get the option to remain an anonymous scandal?
|
| We don't need to know his name to discuss his actions.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The purpose of sharing his name was to warn other companies,
| not to discuss the story.
| data_yum_yum wrote:
| That's an excuse for poor behavior.
|
| Relevant people can share it privately and put out a public
| warning about obviously noticeable behavioral patterns.
|
| Couple issues here:
|
| 1) Sharing it wide open on the Web for the whole world to see
| and everyone to poke fun of is a massive intrusion.
|
| 2) It's also a gateway to bunch of nonsense and false
| information all over the Internet. Half the stuff I see about
| this person under allegations, I just don't trust. Not to
| mention all of a sudden there are tens of impersonators.
|
| 3) There are many people with the same name who's going to
| get a backlash FYI.
|
| All this is happening too close to people openly talking
| about what AI researchers are being traded on every social
| media platform. Idk if any of these people ever wanted to be
| so famous.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > 1) Sharing it wide open on the Web for the whole world to
| see and everyone to poke fun of is a massive intrusion.
|
| If this person had done a single violation I'd agree. He's
| a serial manipulator, though, and he's been scamming people
| throughout the startup community. Once your behavior starts
| becoming a problem for a community, you shouldn't expect
| that community to also protect your identity.
|
| The person was targeting a startup community (YC) and had
| learned how to game their system. The person posting the
| info didn't even post it immediately. They posted it a year
| later after hearing multiple stories of the person
| continuing to do it.
|
| > 3) There are many people with the same name who's going
| to get a backlash FYI.
|
| There's a photo of him right in the thread specifically so
| people can determine if they're talking about the same
| person. He was also highlighted on a Meta open source
| developer blog a few years ago.
|
| We all know people can have similar names.
| data_yum_yum wrote:
| That's great I don't trust anything that's said about him
| because it's publicized.
|
| I'm not even sure if this guy is real or a made up story
| to poke fun at YC community.
|
| Either way, I'm not losing sleep over it.
|
| Just letting all of you know that someone's always
| watching
| eviks wrote:
| Because why would you expect startup hiring process to be good?
| ReD_CoDE wrote:
| The problem is YC is the guild of copycats
|
| If you write something for one startup, you can use it in other
| startups too
|
| So, some people like him fit easily for them all
| dalemhurley wrote:
| I don't know him, but I did once have a staff member who was kind
| of the same. Nothing ever got delivered, their dad, mum, aunty,
| grandmother was always in hospital. They never came into the
| office. They always had their camera off. When they did do
| something, it was brilliant but they only produced stuff when
| questions were being asked. Other staff would cover for him as
| sort of an unspoken rule.
| dalemhurley wrote:
| This is insane, there is a Reddit, of course there is, of almost
| 500K people, https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/ , who discuss
| all of the strategies to do this.
|
| Just imagine being one of the people who legit joins a startup,
| is passionate, working long hours, earning your vest, to have
| your coworker pretending to be working.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| There are plenty of people employed at a single job who only
| pretend to work. That's life.
| tuckerpo wrote:
| Anecdotally I'd argue that it's not just "plenty", but the
| _majority_ of people who only work one single job barely and
| /or pretend to work. I regularly see Principal+ engineers,
| VPs and Directors waddling around looking important or just
| staring at their monitors with a glazed over look.
|
| Most corporations don't need nearly as many employees as they
| actually have, so if you can deliver exceptional results in
| 20 hours, why not dedicate the remaining 20 hours to another
| corp, and double your comp? Everyone wins.
|
| HackerNews dudes claiming they do a true minimum 40 hours per
| week, every week, forever, of heads-down hard-work are
| deluding themselves. I really don't understand the
| overemployment hatred this forum has. There are plenty of
| folks who really do solid work at 2+ jobs, not half-assing
| and politicking.
|
| Disclaimer: I am not OE.
| Finnucane wrote:
| This is why there's a push to the four day workweek. People
| get just as much done, they just use their time more
| efficiently.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| but these people attend too many meetings; the OE ones miss
| everything.
| rpcorb wrote:
| When people with no integrity or ethics defraud their
| employers, "it's life"?
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| How is it an ethical issue? If you don't have enough in
| front of you and the pressure isn't on to be superman, why
| take the slackoff job your employer is incentivizing for
| you? Rational take is to do this. See yourself as a
| consultancy sees itself. If the barriers towards forming
| your own LLC to represent your own labor in this way
| weren't so high this wouldn't even have to happen; we'd all
| be contracting projects because that actually makes sense
| over salary or even hourly. That is even how your own boss
| sees you without this arrangement: a sort of kept
| contractor to be let go of should restructuring happen
| after a project ends.
| Teever wrote:
| Yes. It's the same with wage theft.
|
| Wage theft vastly outstrips other forms of theft[0] and
| it's considered a complete non priority by law enforcement,
| politicians, and the media.
|
| These kinds of things just aren't a priority for one reason
| for another. Let's brainstorm some solutions to wage theft
| and overemployment.
|
| I suggest a synergistic approach -- fix wage theft and
| it'll have a knock-on effective with things like
| overemployment or people pretending to work a single job.
|
| What do you think?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft#/media/File:Wa
| ge_th...
| gk1 wrote:
| Every manager and employer should skim through that subreddit.
| When I stumbled onto it I felt like Bruce Willis at the end of
| The Sixth Sense, where the truth was revealed and every
| flashback moment suddenly made sense and lined up. Until then,
| things just felt "off" but it was hard to put a finger on what
| was actually going on.
| swah wrote:
| I guess impromptu Slack huddles work for quickly finding this
| out in the first weeks...
| dakiol wrote:
| The VPs, heads of, and C levels of most of the companies I have
| worked for were also pretending to be working. They knew the
| company wasn't profitable, they gave a couple of advices here
| and there, and then left the company. Big pay checks. Now they
| are doing the same all over again in other companies.
|
| Tired of considering this "normal" and nobody talking about it.
| But when one simple engineer does it, well, it's unethical,
| it's wrong, yada yada.
| rpcorb wrote:
| Get real. There's a difference between a self-proclaimed
| fraudster and an ineffectual executive. In intention, if not
| in effect.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| In as much as there is a difference between a performing
| magician and one who shows you how a trick is done maybe
| timeon wrote:
| Taking current state of Reddit, with all the rage-bait and
| other sorts of creative writing, I wonder how much of that is
| legit content.
| cardanome wrote:
| This makes no sense. The whole thing is idiotic. Seems to be a
| combination of LARP and some people trying to push a narrative.
|
| If you really can work multiple jobs, just go freelance. Offer
| some consulting or whatever. You will earn more and have less
| stress than juggling multiple jobs.
| the2ndfloorguy wrote:
| https://thesohamparekh.com/
|
| /s
| leovander wrote:
| A handful of comments already alluded to it, but maybe YC
| startups aren't as smart as they think they are when they are
| looking for their founding engineers. Especially when it's just
| the two founders looking for find their early engineers and the
| one holding the mba is the one leading/hiring. East to dupe these
| folks early on?
| jsbg wrote:
| What I find cringeworthy is @Suhail saying they thought he was in
| the US but actually was in India--outing his company as not
| checking employment eligibility [0]. If he was actually allowed
| to work in the US--which doesn't seem to be the case since he
| hasn't responded to any replies asking about this--then they
| hired someone who underperformed, or in the worst case violated a
| company policy they might have that employees cannot have another
| job. Hardly seems like something worth shouting from rooftops.
|
| [0] https://x.com/Suhail/status/1940441569276158190
| Aurornis wrote:
| The Tweet clearly says they fired in him the first week and
| confronted him about the lying/scamming. It seems very clear
| that they figured it out right away and confronted him about
| it.
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| But they haven't checked his employment eligibility or he
| wouldn't have started his first week.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Legally, you have three days to complete an I-9 after
| starting a new position.
|
| Given that there's no oversight of the verification
| process, that can slide, too.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I wonder if he's spending all the time optimizing for interviews
| & interviewing than actually working. I guess that's what you get
| if you make the interview process so terrible that only a full-
| time _interviewer_ (as opposed to real employee) can pass it.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| People like him are going to accelerate the death of
| remote/hybrid roles
| mathverse wrote:
| US companies are afraid of litigations or European labour laws
| (irrelevant if you hire a contractor) but will not hesitate to
| hire questionable people from 3rd world countries for about the
| same pay like they would europeans.
|
| That's bonkers.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Solution: lie and pretend you're in India and relocating to the
| US. /s
| saejox wrote:
| I can't even find one job. What's his secret?
| Zealotux wrote:
| He perfected the hiring game, probably automated fake activity
| on his GitHub, lied on his resume, among other things:
| https://leaderbiography.com/soham-parekh/
| meander_water wrote:
| There are a few comments from the companies that hired him in
| the og twitter thread [0]. Sounds like he was actually really
| good at interviews. Kinda shows how broken the hiring system
| is if you can smash an interview but fail catastrophically at
| the job.
|
| [0] https://x.com/Suhail/status/1940287384131969067
| nottorp wrote:
| He was good at the office politics kabuki. Wore the right masks
| and all.
| ayewo wrote:
| GP is asking how is he able to _land multiple_ jobs in the
| first place when they can't even land one.
|
| Office politics comes after you land a job so it doesn't
| explain why he was so successful at getting multiple offers.
|
| I've seen claims on Twitter that he used multiple tactics:
|
| 1. Good ol' cold emails;
|
| 2.Using a recruiter for warm intros
|
| 3. Applying like everyone else but with a resume that is full
| of fabrications.
|
| A common thread in many of his victim companies: he targeted
| mostly (YC) startups eager to hire (AI) engineers quickly so
| they can scale.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Office politics comes after you land a job
|
| You think? I'm extending the term to actually getting a job
| in "traditional" organizations. You already have to
| optimize for keywords etc, don't you? It's not human
| interaction but a "process".
|
| > he targeted mostly (YC) startups eager to hire (AI)
| engineers quickly so they can scale.
|
| But they got an "AI" engineer didn't they? Or no one in
| management could define what an "AI" engineer is?
|
| Tbh I'd give the guy a high paying job, but in marketing.
| sfn42 wrote:
| Be competent and able to prove it. Work with in-demand tools -
| for me that's .NET, React, Azure, SQL dbs etc. For others it
| may be go, python, java, AWS, GCP whatever is in demand near
| you. Probably not Rust, C or C++ etc - I'm sure there's demand
| for that too but at least near me they're a lot rarer.
|
| Some people do well working with obscure stuff like cobol and
| Delphi etc, but I wouldn't really recommend that unless it kind
| of just falls in your lap somehow.
|
| Web development is pretty big, if you can work full stack even
| better. At least that's what I do, and I don't have any trouble
| getting jobs.
|
| If you struggle with simple interview questions, work on
| fundamentals. All my technical interviews have been quite easy
| but the interviewers have been very impressed. This tells me
| most devs have poor understanding of programming fundamentals.
| Being able to do well at interviews is not that hard and it
| opens a lot of doors. Things like advent of code, codewars etc
| are good practice. Maybe dust off your old DS&A book and go
| through it again. A good DSA understanding will help you in
| your daily work as well, it's not just about interviews. You're
| not supposed to memorize algorithms, you're supposed to
| understand them, understand what makes some algorithms faster
| than others, understand how to use different data structures to
| improve your algorithms. Understand how to judge the
| performance of an algorithm just by reading it (big O and
| such). It's extremely useful and important, I use this
| knowledge on a daily basis and it helps me do well in
| interviews.
|
| Also be good with databases. The database is the core of an
| application, it can and should do most of the heavy lifting. An
| API is basically just an adapter between a frontend and a db.
| oh_fiddlesticks wrote:
| What is the difference between this and leadership being in the
| committees, boards and executive seats of multiple companies?
|
| Why is it the social expectation that an IC must devote 100% of
| their time and energy to the operations of a single company, when
| their senior leadership often manages their time between the
| affairs of many companies in their purview?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| You've answer your own question. If you are hired to work full-
| time you are expected to do that (as per your contract). If you
| are on a board or committee the expectation is a number of
| hours per month.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| But fulltime is a contract thing (at least here) and defined
| by 40 hrs a week. In my country 32-36 in contracts is also
| called fulltime. So after those hours, I did my fulltime and
| now you do not own me until the next 40 hours. Unless working
| for competitors currently here you cannot make valid
| contracts to prevent it either.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| There are contractual terms, including things that are
| likely to be conflict of interests or impact performance.
| And depending on jurisdiction there are also laws on
| working hours: 48 hours max. per week on average in the UK
| and EU _across all jobs_ (it is possible to opt out) and
| with minimum rest times. Because employers can be held
| liable, if they find out they won 't let you.
|
| The comment I was replying to does not make sense.
| closewith wrote:
| However, if you are in the EU, then all your employers are
| jointly responsible for ensuring that your collective
| working hours don't breach the Working Time Directive,
| which means 48 hours as the maximum average working week,
| calculated over a 4-month period, across all employers
| (excluding certain statutory roles like seamen, law
| enforcement, and military).
| nottorp wrote:
| Incidentally, why aren't there more part time positions?
|
| Probably because said leadership would then be unable to keep
| their employees in meetings since they're supposed to do some
| actual work once in a while.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > Incidentally, why aren't there more part time positions?
|
| It is obviously easier to manage a small group of people who
| work full-time than a larger group of people who work part-
| time. So, if there does not exist a strong wish for part-time
| positions from the employees, few will be created.
|
| Also, a lot of employees are there "for the money". So
| getting paid much worse for a part-time position is
| considered to be the worse deal by many employees.
| Lyngbakr wrote:
| At the C-suite level, I'm noticing more "fractional"
| positions, which -- as far as I can tell -- is a fancier way
| of saying part time. (This may be the Baader-Meinhof
| phenomenon at work, though.)
| ozim wrote:
| Go ask wait staff or warehouse workers how much they like
| their part time jobs.
| nottorp wrote:
| So why would you deny me the right to hold several part
| time contracts instead of a full time "job"? I'm not in
| those industries.
| ozim wrote:
| It is not about denying but showcasing that it might not
| be as beneficial as you somehow believe.
| nottorp wrote:
| I'm speaking for myself. I like having several part time
| contracts more than one full time job.
|
| Of course, that only goes for IT if done remotely.
|
| That's no reason to throw seasonal warehouse jobs at me
| as a counterexample.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| because the overhead of a PT or fractional employee is
| just about as much as a FT one, and why should I give you
| 100% attention when you only want to give me 50%?
| account42 wrote:
| Maybe there are more than you think? Some companies are
| willing to do reduced time even if it isn't explicitly listed
| on the offer.
| asdf6969 wrote:
| There aren't formal part time positions but there's a lot of
| jobs that only occupy half your full time and don't ask
| questions when you disappear for a few hours
| matwood wrote:
| IME, employees are on committees and boards (though not public
| company boards all that often) all the time. The issue here
| taking multiple full time positions. A CEO being the CEO of
| multiple companies at once is not common, and when it does
| happen it tends to draw a lot of scrutiny. CEO is considered a
| full time job, showing up to a board meeting every quarter is
| not.
|
| The second part of this is disclosure, which was not done in
| this case.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| One particular CEO in the news is at the head of 3 companies
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| "at the head" of large - especially publicly traded -
| companies is not the same as trying to run all aspects of
| the day-to-day. It also rarely (ever?) happens when they
| don't have a big ownership stake, or are there primarily as
| a figurehead.
|
| We can debate if the executive timeline is too short and
| that's what destroys companies, but I don't see how this is
| the same as an over-employed engineer who's spread too
| thin.
| kevmo314 wrote:
| Many would argue that, indeed, said public CEO is spread
| too thin.
| eviks wrote:
| The difference is pretty explicit in the terms and conditions?
| By the way, there are also leadership positions with similar
| limitations on your ability to take outside roles.
| killingtime74 wrote:
| Interesting. So elon's terms and conditions says he's a part-
| time employee?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >What is the difference between this and leadership being in
| the committees
|
| That this involved lying to your employers. There is no social
| expectation that you only work one job, plenty of people work
| multiple jobs, but there is a social expectation that you do
| what you said you'd do, and it turns out you have a bit of a
| mathematical problem if you try to work 4 eight hour jobs in a
| 24 hour day.
|
| Which is, as per the article, how he was caught. Turns out if
| you call in sick at one place and then push code to github for
| your other jobs most employers aren't paying you for that.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Please. Employers are going after the your last drop of
| blood. The only reason that's socially accepted is because
| they have the power to do so, and because it has been like
| that since ever. You make one mistake and you're fired
| (sometimes even you're fired randomly); the company is not
| earning as much as last year? Layoffs! AI can do part of your
| job? Layoffs!
|
| It's silly and servant-like to think you are in an equal-to-
| equal position when dealing with a company and that you
| cannot dedicate your time to other endeavors just because
| they wrote that in a paper. If it turns out that they don't
| like how you perform while doing multiple jobs, they will
| fire you, just like they will fire you even if you work just
| for them.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I'm in an equal to equal position to not sign any contract
| I don't like. What is it with this whiny attitude in this
| industry? We're talking specifically about software
| engineers. The guy worked _four six figure jobs raking in
| 40 grand a month_ and didn 't show up to work. Can we stop
| pretending we're oppressed workers because we have to show
| up from 9-5, Jesus.
| asdf6969 wrote:
| In my experience I have no leverage and the contract is
| too vague to mean anything. The contract I signed says my
| job conditions and work hours are subject to change at
| any time. I understand I took a risk, but things were
| fine for years before they wanted me to start being
| available 24/7 or work late into the night. In
| environments like this the only sane thing to do is
| reluctantly accept the terms of the contract and push as
| many boundaries as I can.
|
| Just because the employer pays me and I signed a contract
| doesn't mean I can't complain or push back. Do you think
| I should also dance like a Walmart employee in the
| morning if my employer tells me to? The contract I signed
| says yes but in reality it doesn't matter
| freefaler wrote:
| Employment contract is a contract and usually it's fixed
| hours per workday for a salary. So basically you as
| employee swap X hours per Y amount of money.
|
| If one of the parties is in breach of that contract it's
| normal it to be dissolved. If you don't want to work, you
| don't need to sign that contract.
|
| The really moral part of free market economy is that both
| parties are voluntary entering a contract. You as a person
| sell your skilled time, the company buys your skilled time.
| If you have super unique skills, like Andrej Karpathy you
| sell something on the market that is very valuable and you
| have the upper hand. If you know "Microsoft Excel" I'd bet
| there are many people (or AI agents) that will do the same
| and what you're selling can be bought in many places (and
| time zones).
|
| Basic microeconomics... In a free market you need to do
| something for the others to have something for you. And if
| it's not useful, they won't pay you for that.
| asdf6969 wrote:
| Salaried positions are explicitly not selling time.
| Whether I work 2 or 12 hours the compensation is the
| same. The only reason these contracts make sense is the
| unstated agreement that my employer won't abuse the
| contractual power they theoretically have. And what's the
| alternative? Signing bad contracts and leaving when
| things go to shit is probably 10x better for my career
| than pretending that I have agency in contract
| negotiations
| ozim wrote:
| _when their senior leadership often manages their time between
| the affairs of many companies in their purview_
|
| It is kind of tiring for me to read people equating "Elon Musk"
| with "all those rich guys being CEOs".
|
| When you really are a business owner OFTEN you have to devote
| 120% of your time and energy for running the company and single
| one.
|
| People you see on TV flying private jets to expensive holiday
| destinations are not your average business owners. Elon and the
| likes are the exception not the norm.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > when their senior leadership often manages their time between
| the affairs of many companies in their purview?
|
| This is extremely rare; generally a CxO is a full-time job.
| Elon Musk is a notable exception, and, ah, it doesn't seem to
| be going _great_. Being a _board_ member isn't usually a
| significant time commitment.
| confidantlake wrote:
| He is not in their social class. The rules for the peasants
| don't apply to the lords.
| altairprime wrote:
| I did two full-time jobs for a month as part of changing jobs
| fifteen years ago and it's exceedingly intense but otherwise was
| fine; eighteen hour waking days leave a lot of boredom time, no
| matter how many hobbies you have. Employers don't like this
| because that's a lot of work they could have persuaded an
| employee to provide as unpaid overtime labor instead; much this
| outrage is simple jealousy. If you're doing the job to the
| specifications requested at a sufficient level to remain
| employed, then they have no basis to cry outrage. Employment is
| just as monogamous as marriages are: sometimes, _not_ always.
| liotier wrote:
| > eighteen hour waking days leave a lot of boredom time, no
| matter how many hobbies you have
|
| Lol - you don't have enough hobbies.
| altairprime wrote:
| Turns out I prefer some of my hobbies to benefit other
| people's goals, which is often sated by employment.
| freefaler wrote:
| 24-18 = 6 hours "non-working" time. Eating, washing and
| shitting is min 1 hour/day.So 5 hours of bed time with around
| 4.75 hrs of sleep at most, because we don't fall asleep right
| away.
|
| The math doesn't work long term. It may be kept for 1-2 months
| even when a person is 21 yrs old, but I doubt it it can be
| sustained more than that.
| __s wrote:
| They said 18 waking hours, not working hours
| altairprime wrote:
| It doesn't necessarily take 18 hours a day to do two full-
| time jobs for a full workday. Certainly I've never spent
| longer than three weeks doing 16h/day! I don't advise it.
| nottorp wrote:
| I wonder... did any of those simultaneous jobs consider him a bad
| performer?
|
| Did any of those simultaneous jobs even have someone who could
| evaluate their technical employees based on what they do and not
| signaling?
|
| What I don't understand is why he updated his public profiles
| with all those simultaneous jobs..
| VoidWhisperer wrote:
| My understanding from what I saw on twitter about this
| yesterday was that a number of the companies that did hire him
| ended up firing him very quickly soon after, I think
| iamwil wrote:
| Yes. He'd commit code once a week or so, and then make excuses
| on why he couldn't do more. They're fire him after a couple
| months, and by then, he'd have gotten the money.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| > He estimated that he was bringing in $30,000 to $40,000 per
| month
|
| Doesn't sound like "extremely dire financial circumstances" to
| me...
| cardanome wrote:
| Could be a gambling addiction
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Maybe we don't need to take the word of a self-proclaimed
| fraudster at face value.
| v5v3 wrote:
| Yes. People like that are adept at making you feel for
| them.
| Tade0 wrote:
| He wasn't going for that, otherwise he would be more
| specific.
|
| This looks like some sort of money sink he's ashamed to
| admit having. Might be gambling, might be porn. Whatever
| it is, it's not something he'll garner any compassion
| for.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| That's a hell of a gambling addiction when he's making about
| 10 times what I am. You'd think you'd stop if you were just
| flushing that money down the toilet and not winning anything
| from the gambling
| cardanome wrote:
| Well if you are winning money, you need to keep going as to
| not waste your lucky streak. If you are losing, you need to
| double down to win back what you lost. You need to keep
| going, as long as you do, the loses are not real, you can
| still turn it around. You need to play one more game. One
| more. You don't want to face she consequences of your
| action, you are in too deep. Your life will be ruined.
| There is no escape. It is to late to stop anyway, might as
| well keep playing.
|
| Many people don't understand how serious gambling
| addictions is. It destroys families. I can be as bad as any
| drug related addiction if not worse.
|
| Though that was just one guess. There are many money sinks.
| Porn, gacha games and so on.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| About twenty years ago there was a story in Melbourne, of a
| young foreign student at the casino.
|
| He withdrew $1,000 from the ATM from his home back in Asia.
| Was duly given the cash. He noticed though, that looking at
| online banking, his balance hadn't changed. Odd, but maybe
| it was a vagary of international transactions (and again,
| 20+ years ago).
|
| Nope. So he took out another $1,000. And another. Every
| time, got the money, no transaction posted.
|
| Not just one ATM, any.
|
| Over the course of 2 years when it all came out, he had
| gotten $2M+ from this.
|
| Know how he got caught? He took some of that money
| gambling. And sat at a table all night, constantly
| replenishing his stash. That tipped off the casino that
| something was odd, because they had loaded the ATM with
| $250K, which usually lasted ~48h, but he emptied out in a
| few. "Didn't we fill this this afternoon?".
|
| Once they got the financial institutions it was also fairly
| quickly revealed.
|
| And in court, the local banks admitted that there had been
| nothing flagged in their system, and presumably it would
| have kept working until (at least) his card expired.
|
| There you have a literal money printing machine, and "No,
| let's see what I can win gambling". I suppose here's other
| factors like "Maybe it's easier to launder a big winning"
| but nonetheless, it actually appeared more that he was just
| addicted to gambling.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > it actually appeared more that he was just addicted to
| gambling
|
| Presumably he expected the jig to go up eventually and be
| asked to return the money; if his gambling was successful
| he could've returned the money and avoid any trouble,
| essentially having made his winnings on credit.
| dev_l1x_be wrote:
| The moral of the story is that the current interviewing process
| is easy to cheat for people like him.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| Rather, since by basic economy markets are controlled by
| incentives:
|
| _He is the kind of person that companies actually want._
| (Otherwise these companies would have set up a different
| interviewing process (i.e. different incentives)).
|
| :-)
| andai wrote:
| Reminded me of this guy.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27454589
| twright wrote:
| The date on that post says a lot more about the state of hiring
| in '21-22 than overemployment (though 10 is a ridiculous
| amount). Everyone was over-hiring, ZIRP, etc. Then the music
| stopped in '23 and almost everyone was laid off.
| piker wrote:
| This guy, and guys like him, are the reason why it's such a pain
| to do legit business in the modern world.
|
| Try getting a code signing certificate, opening a bank account
| for a new business or listing an app on the App Store. You'll
| quickly see the effects of this kind of behavior.
|
| This guy should be absolutely ostracized.
|
| [Edit: not to mention the countless brilliant Indian software
| devs for whom he just directly put Silicon Valley out of reach.]
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Ostracized? I don't know. If the companies he works for are
| happy enough with his output, then what's wrong? What's silly
| is that we have to work for 40 years to afford a living place
| that can hardly accommodate you and your family. What's silly
| is that you have executives earning 5 times what you earn
| jumping from company to company and doing nothing but
| maximizing their own profits. So, yeah, fuck companies. He guy
| is playing the game the best he can, and if any company doesn't
| like his output they can just fire him.
| imron wrote:
| They did!
| v5v3 wrote:
| >This guy should be absolutely ostracized.
|
| But it's funny. And people who make you laugh, even if naughty,
| get a pass.
| account42 wrote:
| Except this is exactly the same thing that businesses
| constantly do to their employees and customers.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Honestly, it's the way I'm planning to go. Not 4 simultaneous
| full time jobs, but 2 (or one fulltime job and 2 contractor part
| time jobs). Reason: it's easier to pass the interview for less
| demanding jobs (not faang, not second level faang), they are less
| demanding in the day to day (no "exceeds expectations", "meets
| expectations", "under expectations", just simply "good job Joe!"
| and "shit happens Joe"), they are usually less structured (no
| silly ex-faang engineers/managers playing god). They usually pay
| less, ofc, hence the need to have a couple of jobs.
|
| At least in western europe, it's very hard to land a 130K job,
| but two 65K jobs? Rather fine.
| Lyngbakr wrote:
| But when you have multiple jobs, doesn't admin end up being a
| greater proportion of your time since you have to deal with it
| for several companies?
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| It's not that I may do it for fun precisely. I want to pay
| off my house, but I don't see myself working for the next 30
| years earning as much as I have been earning in the last 3
| years. Economy is going bad, countries are in war, and
| everything is just getting harder... if I can double my
| income (and hence reduce by half the time I'm exposed as a
| worker to this society) then I'll do it. Juggling between two
| jobs doesn't sound that bad anymore.
| distances wrote:
| I wonder how two full time contracts could even work out in
| Europe. Surely they both can't pay the social security
| contributions, pension etc?
|
| Also don't most work contracts expressly prohibit taking a
| second job, with the reasoning that the company expects
| employees to rest so they stay productive in the main job?
|
| It's hard to get a 130K job in EU but it's easy to reach and
| exceed that as an independent contractor, so that's an avenue
| you could try out.
| cardanome wrote:
| Here in Germany you are currently only allowed to work
| 48hours per week. Also there are strict laws for companies to
| actually track work time.
|
| So it is absolutely impossible for someone here to have two
| full time jobs without committing working time fraud.
|
| But even if you could, it would make literally no sense two
| have jobs as you earn vastly more with freelancing anyway.
| You would scam yourself.
|
| The most optimal move is to have one regular job so you get
| health care and social security and do freelancing on the
| side. If you work contract allows that, of course.
| oc1 wrote:
| not only that but the german tax system is designed in a
| way to make holding multiple jobs as unattractive as
| possible.
| Teever wrote:
| Really? Like, in Germany it's illegal for someone to have a
| full-time job doing software and then a side business
| making soap and selling it at a farmer's market on the
| weekend?
|
| That's... peculiar.
| shankr wrote:
| Yes! It basically means you go full on freelance or just
| stay put with whatever job you have. I wanted to try
| freelancing before I quite my full time job but it's not
| that easy legally.
| cardanome wrote:
| I am a bit confused why you think it is not easy. In fact
| you have the right to reduce your hours from full time to
| part time if your company employs more than 15 people. So
| you can easily make time for a freelancing job on the
| side.
|
| Also you don't really need to track your hours when
| freelancing other than maybe for billing purposes so you
| really don't need to worry about hours anyway. Generally
| you are considered part-time self-employed when doing
| less than 18 hours per week.
|
| Earning a bit on the side is really not an issue in
| Germany. In fact the combination of having a part time
| employed job and then doing freelancing is very popular.
|
| What doesn't work is being full time employed at two
| companies but that would make no sense even if you could
| as you would earn much less and pay insane taxes.
| cardanome wrote:
| No, that case would be fine if the side business would be
| being self-employed. No one cares how many hours you work
| if you are self-employed. (Mostly, I am simplifying here)
|
| What is an issue is working employed for two jobs and
| going over the 48 hour limits.
|
| Working that much is very unhealthy so the state needs to
| protect people from being exploited. People should be
| able to live from working full time. Having to work
| multiple jobs and to destroy your own health is morally
| abhorrent.
|
| Under German law being employed by a company and being
| self-employed are legally very distinct things. If you
| are employed you get protection from being fired, you
| have to have health care, pay into the retirement fond
| and so on.
|
| If you are self-employed you are on your own. You can
| decide if you use public or private health care, you need
| to figure out how to save up for retirement yourself and
| so own. You get more freedom but less protection. That is
| because the law realizes that working people need
| protection from exploitation but also wants to give
| freedom to those that want to try their own business.
| Teever wrote:
| > Working that much is very unhealthy so the state needs
| to protect people from being exploited.
|
| I get that the state needs to protect people from being
| exploited but I'm not sure this is the right way to go
| about it.
|
| It seems to me that it would be better if the state had
| policies in place to ensure that one full-time job (or
| less even) provided sufficient income to enable a person
| to live self-sufficiently and raise a family.
|
| Working a full-time job and raising a family is often a
| more stressful thing than a single person working a job
| that requires over-time. I don't see why the state should
| regulate how someone without kids spends their free time
| if that person wants to work.
|
| Some people are just naturally inclined to be active,
| whether it's some combination of work, family,
| volunteering, and sports activities while others are not.
| I have a friend who is constantly working and constantly
| going to concerts and playing on several sports teams.
| His life seems stressful to me and far beyond how I want
| to spend my life but he enjoys it.
|
| The state shouldn't restrict people from choosing how to
| spend their time, but instead should strive to create a
| society where people aren't forced to spend too much of
| their time working to meet their basic needs, with the
| ultimate goal of gradually reducing the time needed to do
| so over time.
| cardanome wrote:
| > I don't see why the state should regulate how someone
| without kids spends their free time if that person wants
| to work.
|
| So single people that can work 60 hours a day would get
| all the careers options while the person raising children
| is left in the dust? Does not sound fair.
|
| > Some people are just naturally inclined to be active,
| whether it's some combination of work, family,
| volunteering, and sports activities while others are not.
|
| That sounds like a healthy mix of activities. On the
| other hand working 60 hours a week is not.
|
| > The state shouldn't restrict people from choosing how
| to spend their time,
|
| It does not. You can create your own business and work
| yourself to death if you wish to. Again, the protection
| is for those that are employed by others.
|
| Or in other words: You are allowed to hurt your own
| health as an entrepreneur but you are not allowed to
| employ people in such a way that it excessively hurts
| their health, even if they "consent" to it. Thing is,
| they can't consent because there is a power imbalance.
| Even if you make laws that people working less hours
| should not be discriminated, you can't really stop it.
|
| Not to mention someone who is a workaholic needs
| psychological help not the "freedom" to work more.
|
| > but instead should strive to create a society where
| people aren't forced to spend too much of their time
| working to meet their basic needs, with the ultimate goal
| of gradually reducing the time needed to do so over time.
|
| We already could already be working significantly less. I
| always like to link https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-
| gap/
|
| That is just not how capitalism works. Yes, you can fight
| for wage increases. You can fight for limits of working
| hours. But those gains will have to be paid in blood.
|
| You idea would only work under socialism which had the
| Subbotnik which was volunteer unpaid labor on the
| weekends for the betterment of society.
| Teever wrote:
| I understand the concern about exploitation, but there's
| a fine line between protection and paternalism. Just
| because some people overwork themselves doesn't mean
| everyone else should be forbidden from choosing to work
| more and it isn't obvious that working 60 hours a week
| hurts your health.
|
| Raising kids is but one kind of life stressor and it's
| not the state's job to "equalize" life paths by punishing
| those who don't have children or want to pursue different
| goals. Instead, the state should ensure a strong safety
| net so people are free to find their own balance.
|
| Some pursuits genuinely take a monk-like dedication to
| see breakthroughs and we shouldn't hobble ambitious
| people who want to undertake them in the interest of
| fairness. You're describing a world where someone can't
| become a viruouso cellist, pioneer a life saving
| neurosurgery technique or revolutionize computer
| architecture because someone else decides to have kids.
| That doesn't sit right with me -- it's a little too
| Harrison Bergeron.
|
| People might want to throw themselves into intense work
| for a decade before changing direction and focusing on
| raising a family or giving back to their community. Or
| maybe they want to do that the other way, start a family
| first and then once their kids are adults they want to
| pursue dreams that they spent decades dreaming of.
| Flexibility and dynamism in life roles is part of a
| healthy society.
|
| The role of the state should be to ensure that no one
| _has_ to 60 hours a week to survive and to ensure that
| everyone has real opportunities to live their best life
| that _they_ choose -- not to make that choice for them.
| Havoc wrote:
| >Also don't most work contracts expressly prohibit taking a
| second job
|
| Every single full time work contract that wasn't written by a
| complete moron spells out that full time is in fact full
| time.
|
| The overemployed crowd just ignores it an hope they don't get
| sued / word spreads / prior gigs won't reference
| Tade0 wrote:
| Being employed in four companies is obviously not sustainable,
| but half of that is fairly common.
|
| I know several people who spent months working for two companies:
| one full time, the other part time. The most productive few would
| reach two full time positions and actually keep delivering for
| over a year.
|
| The reason this happens at all is that sufficiently large
| organisations expect performance to be in a specific range - if
| it's too low you'll be fired, but going the extra mile will not
| yield benefits, as your compensation is decided by the assigned
| budget and promotions are rare.
|
| Case in point: a few years ago my former co-worker was given
| "overtime" which was actually a hidden raise, as management
| really wanted to keep him, but couldn't officially increase his
| compensation. The organisation for which we worked eventually
| cracked down on such practices, so he left to work at a place
| which would compensate him this much and more without resorting
| to such tricks.
| swader999 wrote:
| Having a side hustle or even excessively volunteering isn't
| much different in terms of workload. A lot of people do this.
| It's always the meetings that are the hard part.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| people above and around you prefer if you stay within the
| range. over performing stresses other people out and causes
| conflict.
| lazyeye wrote:
| https://reddit.com/r/overemployed
|
| https://youtu.be/IWMngMm3_88
| dang wrote:
| Related links that have been posted in other threads. Others?
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/03/who-is-soham-parekh-the-se...
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/man-goes-viral-working...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWMngMm3_88
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| How come all the companies that hired him are "X but with AI"?
| Any several state he "aced" their algo-focused interviews.
| That's like winning a long drive contest; it doesn't mean
| you're good at golf.
| bmitc wrote:
| This seems to highlight how broken the hiring process is at these
| companies. I guess this is what you get when you want to leet
| code your candidates.
| jcadam wrote:
| Most US citizens applying for software engineering jobs can't
| even get a response to their resume, and then I read stories like
| this.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| all the jobs are being outsourced is why
| y-curious wrote:
| I'm hoping that the section 174 fix from the latest tax bill
| will slow this down significantly
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| I'll be surprised if it does. Software jobs are slumping
| for several reasons and the section 174 hack fixes one for
| a while but causes between one to four other problems
| depending on where you live.
| johanyc wrote:
| One to four other problems? what are they
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| Yeah, it's really something to read this.
| firstplacelast wrote:
| Hiring managers and HR area increasingly only open to unicorn
| candidates that have the exact amount of experience in the
| exact tech stack. While a few of those people exist, it's
| definitely more likely they end up interviewing people that are
| open to lying. So now your pipeline is filled with 90% liars,
| some just small white lies and others who have made a resume
| that has exclusively tailored lies just for your org.
|
| The jobs aren't that hard and many people that fudged their
| experience are capable, so the liars that are hired perform
| adequately and hiring team sees no reason to adjust their
| strategy.
|
| Eventually this gets out-of-hand as people learn to further
| exploit these practices.
| CyanLite2 wrote:
| TLDR: Tech has cargo-culted the interview process and people are
| gaming the system based on that interview process.
| tropicalfruit wrote:
| this reminds me of dating apps
|
| instead of all the women chasing the same guy
|
| its all the companies chasing the same dev
|
| soham is a chad
|
| has hiring turned into tinder?
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