Would your onboarding process catch a Soham?

This software engineer worked for multiple startups at the same time.

👋 Hey, it’s Stephane. I share lessons, and stories from my journey to help you lead with confidence as an Engineering Manager. To accelerate your growth see: 50 Notion Templates | The EM’s Field Guide | CodeCrafters | Get Hired as an EM | 1:1 Coaching

Paid subscribers get 50 Notion Templates, The EM’s Field Guide, and access to the complete archive. Subscribe now.

A software engineer worked for multiple startups at the same time. And none of them knew - until one founder blew the whistle on X.

This actually happened a couple of weeks ago. In 2025. In some of the most hyped, well-funded startups around.

Soham Parekh aced interviews, made excuses, collected paychecks, and barely shipped a line of real code. It took months - months - for some teams to even notice something was off.

So my question to you is: Would your onboarding process catch someone like this?

CodeRabbit (sponsored)

Code reviews are critical but time-consuming. CodeRabbit acts as your AI co-pilot, providing instant Code review comments and potential impacts of every pull request.

Beyond just flagging issues, CodeRabbit provides one-click fix suggestions and lets you define custom code quality rules using AST Grep patterns, catching subtle issues that traditional static analysis tools might miss.

CodeRabbit has so far reviewed more than 10 million PRs, installed on 1 million repositories, and used by 70 thousand Open-source projects. CodeRabbit is free for all open-source repo's.

Thanks to CodeRabbit for sponsoring this newsletter!

This isn’t a remote work problem

People are quick to blame remote work. But that’s not it.

The issue isn’t “working from home”. The issue is not having useful check-ins. No expectations for the output you want to see.

Most of these startups let Soham in through the front door with barely a knock. A laptop, Slack invite, and GitHub access later, he was in.

And he used that access to juggle many jobs at a time.

The interview

A lot of founders said he was one of the best candidates they’d seen.

Great system design. Clear communication. Even his GitHub looked legit.

But none of that could predict what would happen. We’ve convinced ourselves that interviews show future performance. They don’t.

Your first 10 days should catch a fraud

Let’s say you hire someone who turns out to be juggling other jobs. When should you know?

I strongly believe that in the first 10 days you should know.

Here’s what your onboarding process should include.

They should clone your repos and get their environment up and running in the first couple of days. If they haven’t even touched the codebase by day three, you’re probably already behind.

They should commit some code by day three to five - even if that’s adding some simple functionality while finding their way around. It doesn’t have to be perfect or complex. Fix a bug. Add a test. Move a button. If it takes more than a week to deliver anything, you’ve got a problem.

Set up an onboarding buddy. The buddy’s output will slow down a bit as their main responsibility will be to have pair programming sessions and regular syncs with the new joiner. Fraudsters avoid working live. They need the space to juggle other jobs.

Track GitHub activity. I am not suggesting counting commits but getting context on the work that they do. Are they at least working in your repos? If they’re pushing PRs to side projects during your work hours, that’s a giant red flag.

Trust is earned

Soham’s stories were ridiculous.

He said a drone hit his house. He said he was dealing with visa issues. He said he had a chronic illness. He claimed to be in San Francisco, but Zoom showed his IP was in Mumbai.

And still, founders believed him.

Why? Because it’s easier to accept a well-spoken excuse than to admit you got scammed.

That seemed to be his strategy: lie just enough to be believable, and bank on people feeling too awkward to challenge it.

You don’t need to be paranoid. But you do need to pay attention.

Do this before you hire your next engineer

Make sure you do background checks. Not references from friends or ex-colleagues. Did they actually work there? Were they any good?

During their probation give them a project with a deadline. Observe how they handle ambiguity, what questions they ask, and their actual delivery. One week is enough to learn a lot.

Check timezone and IP. If someone says they’re in the Bay Area, but you get signals that indicate otherwise, ask about it. It’s not rude. It’s basic due diligence.

Build a scorecard for the first 30 days. What does success look like on day five? Day ten? Day thirty? Be as specific as possible. Are they delivering? Are they working well with their team mates? Are they engaged? Start getting frequent feedback from peers early.

And most importantly, don’t be afraid to end things quickly if it is not working out. No one wants to admit a hiring mistake. But the longer you wait, the more painful it gets.

This will happen again

Startups are desperate. Hiring is hard. Everyone wants to believe they found an amazing engineer.

But that makes you vulnerable.

Soham got caught because one founder spoke up. Others followed. But not every fraud gets exposed. Most keep going, moving from job to job, wrecking teams and wasting money.

What are your thoughts? Would your onboarding process catch a Soham?

If you're not sure, it might be time to tighten your system.

That’s all, folks!

See you in the next one,
~ Stephane

PS. Maybe that was his strategy to get all these jobs 😅