Necessity, not greed: Soham Parekh explains why he worked for over 140 hours a week in five US tech jobs at the same time

Time of India

2 days ago

Soham Parekh
has faced weeks of online uproar. Now he has spoken for himself. The
Indian tech worker
sat down with TBPN to answer point-blank whether he did what everyone accused him of. His reply was plain: 'It is true.'
He admitted misleading employers about where he worked from and how many jobs he held. 'I'm not proud of my actions,' Parekh told
TBPN
. He stressed that desperation drove him. 'Dire financial hardship drove him to make those decisions,' he said.
Moonlighting has a schedule few could endure
Parekh painted a bleak picture of how far he went. He said plainly, 'I don't think anyone enjoys
working 140 hours a week
, but I had to do it because of financial conditions.' Asked how he stayed afloat through such brutal weeks, he added, 'So an average day… an average week for you it feels like basically you sleep for 6 to 8 hours and you're basically programming for 12 to 14 hours every single day for seven days a week.'
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He said he was known for pushing himself to exhaustion. 'I think people around me will probably say this 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.'
Despite his heavy coding routine, Parekh said AI tools only helped a little. He told TBPN he didn't take on more jobs just because he had AI. He focused, he said, on the tasks in front of him.
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'I did what I had to do': Soham Parekh
Parekh also described how it all began. Asked if he thought he broke contracts or found legal loopholes, he answered: '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.'
He said the real reason was simple: survival. 'Financial circumstances essentially. No one really likes to work 140 hours a week but I had to do it out of necessity.'
He added firmly, 'I did what I had to do to get out of a tough situation.' For Parekh, it was a personal battle. 'I was determined to change my situation, and I took action to help myself through it.'
Responding to claims he ran a secret team
Online, some claimed Parekh ran a mini business under his name — hiring junior developers to handle his workload. He pushed back strongly. 'That's simply not true,' he said. He insisted, 'I wrote every inch of codes.'
A 'scammer,' says Mixpanel co-founder
Suhail Doshi, co-founder of Mixpanel, went public with his side on X. Doshi wrote that Parekh tricked his company, calling him a 'scammer.' He said Parekh joined one of his firms but was let go within a week once his secret came out. Doshi claimed he had 'tried to warn Parekh about moonlighting, but the warning clearly didn't work.'
Doshi's posts opened the floodgates. At least six other startup heads shared similar stories. They said they too found out Parekh was working at multiple companies at once while sitting in India — without telling anyone.
Parekh's journey started in Mumbai. He told TBPN he was meant to move to the US in 2018 for graduate school but could not afford it. In the end, he shifted in 2020 instead — and fell into mounting bills and debts he claims left him cornered.
Since the revelations, social media has not stopped talking. Some call him a symbol of moonlighting gone too far. Others see a man who felt he had no choice. One recruiter said Parekh 'deserves a second chance.'
Meanwhile, Parekh stands by what he did — not to justify, but to own up. 'I take full responsibility,' he said in closing. Whether that brings him back into tech's good books, only time will tell.