A very large plc which runs the phone network in the UK
wanted to get another developer in to the department I was then working in.

Although this person wasn't working for me, I was asked to give the cvs of the likely candidates a quick scan for my thoughts / comments.

"Don't get this guy in" I said after looking at one cv - "even for a contractor (which we all were) he's done too many jobs in too short a period of time. He must be crap, otherwise he'd get renewed".

Yes...well, you can guess who they hired.

He came in, all Billy Big Mouth, claiming to have written operating systems in a spare lunch hour, the usual BS.

The first demo of his work he gave to the (thankfully, internal) clients went well. Then, a week before he was due to give a demo of the finished product, he vanished.

When his code for the first demo was examined, he'd basically faked everything...his system did nothing but return plausible answers.

He wasn't the worst coder they employed by any manner or means. One guy spent 18 months writing a system that never so much as compiled, let alone worked...I replaced it with something that worked inside of 2 weeks, so well done him for earning £1400 / week for 18 months doing fuck all. The worst culprit was a woman who employed as a coder didn't understand how conditional statements worked (the equivalent of an HGV driver who couldn't find reverse, I guess). She survived there for 9 months...her next employer...the BBC.
(TheImmortalJenkins, Mon 10 Sep 2012, 14:32, 1 reply)

A very large plc which runs the phone network in the UK
also known as bt.
( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Mon 10 Sep 2012, 14:57, closed)