Are we failing on ambiguity here? If by "it" you mean "the peter principle", then yes I think it's very true. But here, by assumption, the programmer is not co

Are we failing on ambiguity here? If by "it" you mean "the peter principle", then yes I think it's very true. But here, by assumption, the programmer is not competent (I doubt this is so, but that was the context) and petercooper's suggestion -- a good one -- was to consider getting promoted into a perhaps more suitable position. That's the inverse of PP.