A PhD program basically produces a researcher who is the world's expert in a very very narrow area of a subfield. As a job candidate, a PhD holder could offer,

A PhD program basically produces a researcher who is the world's expert in a very very narrow area of a subfield. As a job candidate, a PhD holder could offer, in descending order of "putting their degree to use", A) their subfield specialty, B) their ability to work as a researcher, C) being a smart human. If you're interviewing a PhD for a nuts and bolts software engineering role, you are basically hiring on the basis of C, ie their degree is a dubious value add for you. PhDs are rarely going to be an ideal hire for a startup unless their subfield is literally the core of your business. As an aside, I am bewildered by the the idea of a CS PhD holder who literally cannot code in any language. But short of seeing their CV, who knows. Maybe they specialized in the more theoretical math- or EE-like areas of CS, and their undergrad data structures course was a distant memory?