Soham Parekh was the golden hire, on paper. Georgia Tech grad, Github open-source fellow, stints at hot startups like Synthesia and Union.ai. But beneath the buzzword-stuffed resume lay a story that’s now shaking the foundations of trust in tech’s remote-first era.
🚨 Soham Parekh, an Indian software engineer, has become the focus of a major controversy in the global tech industry after being accused of moonlighting secretly holding multiple jobs at several US-based startups. pic.twitter.com/NgKNZqChot
— Indian Tech & Infra (@IndianTechGuide) July 4, 2025
This week, Suhail Doshi, founder of analytics company Mixpanel, took to X to accuse Parekh of a yearlong moonlighting scheme involving three to four full-time roles at once, primarily within the Y Combinator network. “He was fired within a week for dishonesty,” Doshi wrote. “But it didn’t stop him from pulling the same stunt at other YC startups.”
PSA: there’s a guy named Soham Parekh (in India) who works at 3-4 startups at the same time. He’s been preying on YC companies and more. Beware.
I fired this guy in his first week and told him to stop lying / scamming people. He hasn’t stopped a year later. No more excuses.
— Suhail (@Suhail) July 2, 2025
What followed was a cascade of founders stepping forward—some angry, others stunned. One admitted to hiring Parekh based on his charisma and GitHub contributions. Another shared DMs of projects that never shipped.
All confirmed what Doshi hinted at: Parekh was stretching himself thin, sometimes outsourcing tasks or underdelivering while maintaining the façade of a rockstar engineer.
The Resume That Fooled the Valley
Parekh’s credentials—now under scrutiny—listed a computer engineering degree from the University of Mumbai and a Master’s from Georgia Tech. His resume, shared publicly by Doshi, boasted roles like:
- Dynamo AI – Senior Software Engineer (Jan 2024–Present)
- Union.ai – Senior Fullstack Engineer (Jan 2023–Jan 2024)
- Synthesia – Senior Fullstack Engineer (Dec 2021–Dec 2022)
- Alan AI – Founding Software Engineer (Jan 2021–Dec 2021)
Multiple founders from companies like Antimetal and Warp confirmed he had been contracted, though usually short-term. Many now admit they never verified employment overlaps or asked the right questions.
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Why This Scandal Hit a Nerve
The scandal’s timing couldn’t be worse. With Silicon Valley adjusting to hybrid and fully remote teams post-pandemic, questions of accountability and oversight are boiling over.
If a single developer can game the system so thoroughly, what does it say about vetting practices in high-stakes startup environments?
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman even joked about the situation online, calling it a “glitch in the hustle matrix.” Tech Twitter did what it does best—turning Parekh into a meme symbol of “grindset” culture gone rogue.
Microsoft just laid off 9,000 workers. All of them Soham Parekh
— Daniel (@growing_daniel) July 2, 2025
While some are framing this as an isolated incident, others argue it’s part of a growing trend—freelancers masquerading as full-time devs, AI-enhanced portfolios, or teams subcontracting deliverables without disclosure.
Parekh hasn’t made any public statement as of this writing. His social profiles are either locked or scrubbed.
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