Soham Parekh occupies numerous technological jobs at the same time takes culture of agitation to “ extreme ”

The technology industry is in shock after a software engineer has been exposed as working in several Silicon Valley startups at the same time – and experts say that it is a lesson on the culture of bustle too far.

Soham Parekh, a Mumbai software engineer, has become viral on social networks after being accused by the founder of Playground Ai, Suhail Doshi, on X of working simultaneously in a number of startups.

DOSHI wrote: “There is a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works in 3-4 startups at the same time. He was attacked in YC [Y Combinator] companies and more. Beware. I dismissed this guy in his first week and told him to stop lying / ripping people. He did not stop a year later. More apologies. “”

The position has accumulated 25,000 likes with more founders presented themselves at the hiring of Parekh, including the startup of the Lindy, which dismissed it after seeing the post of Doshi.

DOSHI confirmed to CNBC to do by e-mail that Parekh worked in the company. “We realized that he occupied several jobs shortly after joining, on the basis of large constant fluctuations of his availability and the quality of his production. He also attended an off -site site, where he became quite clear,” said Doshi.

Soham Parekh did not respond to CNBC to apply for an interview.

Matthew Parkhurst, founder of Software Startup Antietal, said that Parekh was the first hiring of company engineering in 2022 and was intelligent and friendly. “We realized fairly quickly that he worked in several companies and let him go,” said Parkhurst on X.

Other founders such as Haz Hubble, the co-founder of the Pally Social Media Planner, also manifested themselves to offer Parekh a role of founding engineer.

“About a week ago, we offered him a role of founding engineer, with a total package worth $ 250,000 per year, but we retired after he would not live with us in San Francisco – now we know why!” Hubble told CNBC by e-mail, explaining that as the company is at the start of the stadium, the team living and working together is crucial.

“For me, it seems that he must be addicted to the game of job tenders, rather than earning money, since he never lasts more than a few weeks and that he is rarely paid. This raises the question – why?”

Lindy and Antimetal did not immediately respond to the request for CNBC comments.

In an interview with the TBPN technological program on Thursday, Parekh admitted that it was true that he worked for several startups at a time and was not proud of what he had done.

“No one really likes to work 140 hours a week, but I had to do so by necessity,” said Parekh in the show. “I was in extremely disastrous financial circumstances.”

Parekh said he had started to do so until 2022, and the exhausting lifestyle meant that he had become a “non-series in series”.

He added that he “cared about these companies” and “greed was not an incentive”, despite his financial situation. He said that he had always taken the lower capital offer lower and higher in companies.

The technological community on social networks is however divided with some questioning the ethics of secretly working several jobs, while others wonder how Parekh succeeded.

Parekh’s story is not unique in the technology industry, many technology workers secretly occupying several jobs in recent years in order to protect themselves from mass dismissals and uncertainty of the labor market.

A sub-dector called “R / Over Employee” was created in 2021, users sharing advice on how they manage to balance several works without being detected.

“During the Covid summit, there was this technological companies rush to draw talent, and there was this intense competition for talents,” Alexandru Voica, responsible for AI of Synthesia, in CNBC, told CNBC.

“This caused, in some cases, this type of behavior to be more widespread than it was during non -Pandemic times.”

Voica noted that the rise in distance of remote work played a decisive role in allowing this behavior among technological workers. “This has led to obviously incredible advantages for people who work hard, but also allowed people who may have this type of attitude, all of a sudden, to obtain jobs that they would not have before.”

Having at least two jobs is also common in the IT sector of India. There was an increase of 25 to 30% of the moonlight observed between 2020 and 2023, according to Randstad India, workers citing factors such as low wages and remote work.

Although the exhausting working hours of Parekh are unusual – even in technology – it is a reminder of the depth of the culture of agitation in the industry.

“The obsession of Silicon Valley for productivity measures and rapid hiring has created conditions where a person can juggle five roles – and not because they are effective, but because nobody is really looking for,” said Dmitry Zaytsev, founder of the Talent Management Company Dandelion Civilization, said CNBC.

“What we see is the extreme end of the culture of agitation: when work becomes performance and identity becomes fragmented.”

Zaytsev explained that Parekh had mainly passed several series of technical interviews because general skills are not as appreciated in technology. Qualities such as commitment, reliability and team presence “are often overlooked until there is a crisis,” he said.

“Professional exhaustion is a predictable result when the culture of the workplace rewards the overm and deals with exhaustion as a badge of honor. The admission of Soham that he worked 140 hours per week is not only unhealthy, it is the reflection of a system that is equivalent to production,” he added.

This occurs while European technological startups face the pressure of certain VCs to adopt a more rigorous work schedule – such as the “996” culture of China or the 24/7 culture of Silicon Valley – to better compete on a global technological scene. This has been encountered with a backlash, the founders saying that CNBC means that overwork can lead to a crisis of productivity, professional exhaustion and even resentment.

SURANGA CHATRATILLAKE, general partner of Balderton Capital, said that this debate occurred due to “a fetishization of overwork” and a glorification of the culture of agitation in the technological scene and startup in Silicon Valley.

The Voica of Synthesia warned that workers who take advantage of flexible working policies may paint other engineers in a bad day and could have these advantages removed.

“Most of the engineers I know work very hard, very dedicated, very passionate, then when you have this type of more rider behavior, it gives this tone that it is normal behavior in the community,” said Voica.

This could cause employers to guess if they should keep hybrid work policies in place, he said.

“It will have an impact on women. It will have an impact on disabled people [and] the most vulnerable, which really took advantage of it [flexible] Work arrangement, and now they will be affected by this type of behavior, “he added.

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