Bengaluru-based techie Soham Parekh recently admitted to moonlighting for various US startups and claimed that he worked for around 140 hours a week. He also said that he did multiple jobs, not to scam anyone, but out of necessity.
When asked why he moonlighted for US startups, Parekh told TBPN in an interview: “Financial circumstances essentially. No one really likes to work 140 hours a week but I had to do it out of necessity.”
Going ahead, he was questioned whether he violated his employment contracts or he believes that some legal loopholes allowed him to do this without committing any legal violation.
Replying to this, the techie said that he is not proud of his actions and would not endorse it either. Parekh said: “Honestly, going back to how it started and what the motivations were. You probably know, I would want to preface with saying I’m not proud of what I’ve done. It’s not something I endorse either.”
When questioned on whether he used AI tools to code and if that made him take up more gigs, Parekh said that having AI tools helped him but did not mean having more jobs.
He added that he did not have a fixed schedule for each company and focused on the job at hand instead. “I think people around me will probably say that I am notoriously known for not sleeping. I am a… you know… I am a serial like non-sleeper at this point, I would say,” the Bengaluru-based techie mentioned.
Why did Soham Parekh grab headlines?
Soham Parekh became the talk of the town when Suhail Doshi, co-founder of Mixpanel and CEO of Playground AI, said in a post on X that he had fired the techie within a week for dishonesty. Doshi alleged that the engineer moonlighted across multiple US startups, including Y Combinator-backed companies.
He even claimed that “90%” of is resume looked falsified. As per the engineer’s CV, he has a bachelor’s from the University of Mumbai and a master’s from Georgia Tech. It also lists role at Dynamo AI, Union AI, Synthesia, and Alan AI.
These credentials helped him crack job interviews, but hardly translated into any output whatsoever, as per his employers. Not just holding 3-6 jobs at once, Soham Parekh is also accused of using overlapping timelines, misleading credentials, and “ghost work” excuses to manage work commitments.
