Soham Parekh, a software engineer from India, faced heavy criticism after being accused of secretly working for multiple startups at the same time—a practice known as moonlighting. Now, he has announced that he has joined a new company called Darwin Studios as a founding engineer, signaling a new beginning in his career.
The controversy started when Soham was exposed by Suhail Doshi, the founder of Playground AI, who warned companies on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) about Soham’s actions. He claimed Soham was working for 3–4 startups at once, especially targeting companies backed by Y Combinator, a popular startup accelerator. After the post went viral, Soham was fired from several jobs, and recruiters became cautious about hiring him.
In a recent interview with a U.S. tech show, Soham spoke publicly for the first time since the issue came to light. He admitted he had worked at five companies at the same time, but denied hiring junior developers to do his work. He said, “I’m not proud of what I did,” and explained that financial struggles pushed him to take multiple jobs starting in 2022—before the rise of AI tools like GitHub CoPilot.
Despite the backlash, Darwin Studios has given him a second chance. He will be helping to build Wayve, an AI-based platform for remixing videos. The startup’s founder, Sanjit Juneja, called Soham a “10x engineer” and said he now has even more to prove.
This incident has reopened discussions in the tech industry about the ethics of moonlighting, the pressure to always be productive, and the challenges of remote work. While some people see Soham’s actions as wrong, others believe the real problem lies in the demanding nature of startup jobs.
Soham’s new role at Darwin Studios may mark a fresh start, but the debate about trust, work culture, and personal responsibility in the tech world is far from over.
