> Clearly this individual doesn't understand git at all. The script wasn't even doing anything. Their other tasks, which were application development tasks, demonstrated code that was also somewhere around an intern/associate level.
I think I must always take "can't program" a bit too literally, because it sounds like this person very clearly can program but doesn't understand git. I have worked with enough senior/staff engineers from exotic computing environments (mainframes, academic/scientific computing) that the idea of a senior engineer who doesn't know git is not surprising, but I would have expected such a person to ask for guidance/help. I found myself in similar situations when I joined MSFT despite having only used Linux/OS X for over a decade.
I guess maybe I would suggest that you phrase your assessment of someone like that as, "this person is unfamiliar with a standard tool and does not produce work that meets my code quality bar" instead of "this person can't program," as the implies that they got and have kept their current job through deceit and/or outright fraud, and were caught attempting to defraud you.
I think I must always take "can't program" a bit too literally, because it sounds like this person very clearly can program but doesn't understand git. I have worked with enough senior/staff engineers from exotic computing environments (mainframes, academic/scientific computing) that the idea of a senior engineer who doesn't know git is not surprising, but I would have expected such a person to ask for guidance/help. I found myself in similar situations when I joined MSFT despite having only used Linux/OS X for over a decade.
I guess maybe I would suggest that you phrase your assessment of someone like that as, "this person is unfamiliar with a standard tool and does not produce work that meets my code quality bar" instead of "this person can't program," as the implies that they got and have kept their current job through deceit and/or outright fraud, and were caught attempting to defraud you.