> Basic maths should tell you that the probability of matching some real phone number is actually quite high.

Yeah well, the thing about pressure (of the sort the author has describing) is that you make mistakes - the kind where some times 3+3 = 9.

Source: I queued jobs to nuke the whole production database (relax, we had automated backups+verification so we recovered fast enough; and then added some gating so make this more difficult in the future)

I pass no judgment, but merely take the developer at his word: https://new.pythonforengineers.com/blog/confessions-of-a-1x-...

This link is the cure to imposter syndrome, this is an actual imposter.

I don't think they're even actually interested in programming and I cannot comprehend why they do it as a job or why they got hired.

Why would he write and _publish_ this?!? Is this some kind of humiliation fetish? These are things that should maybe be admitted in a confessional, or therapy.

Being somewhat generous, I don't think it's because they didn't understand the probabilities, it's because they didn't think about the impact of what they were doing at all, beyond the problem they needed to solve.

I.e., the only thing they were considering was whether the number entered at the start of the test would show up in the right places at the other end of their system. They simply didn't consider that an actual phone would be shut off along the way.