Veterinarians have boards and licenses, right? I can't hang a shingle as a vet on a whim. That's a very clear filter. All the vetting of whether or not someone

Veterinarians have boards and licenses, right? I can't hang a shingle as a vet on a whim. That's a very clear filter. All the vetting of whether or not someone can perform the job is done before they even get to you. However, anyone can call themselves a programmer and apply to programming jobs and there's no way to tell if they're capable or not until they're at it. And even previous job experience isn't a strong signal of competence. I've inherited code bases from people who left for other programming jobs where the code they left behind was just a mess inside.