> In nearly 20 years of doing this I’ve have never had one of these dreaded fake developers make it through the resume screen, initial phone call, and a convers

> In nearly 20 years of doing this I’ve have never had one of these dreaded fake developers make it through the resume screen, initial phone call, and a conversation with an engineer....And if I did, we’d just fire them as soon as it was clear they lied about their ability. I've spent most of the last 25 years working independently. A large number of the 'fakers' (or just... currently-low-skilled) don't apply to large companies with screening processes. They build custom one-off software/websites/etc for small businesses. Those small business people have no ability to judge skills or quality. Some of the tech folks doing that may, at some point, try to apply 'up' in to larger companies, moving away from independent/freelance, and some of those may get weeded out.