> I can't tell what office you're talking about but your description doesn't make it seem like a place where people relax and enjoy if you could be easily fired.
It could. Imagine anyone who couldn't run a 13 second 100 meter dash was fired, but they only hired people who ran it in 11 seconds in the interview. Nobody's really going to be too worried.
It can't be assessed by a single dimension, but it doesn't have to be. A high quality engineer absolutely can rank the technical competence of other engineers in his field (not just computer science) with a high degree of certainty, and that's all you need.
The "it's complex" argument is similar to the "it's a tradeoff" argument in that both are easily abused to justify any bad decision.
It could. Imagine anyone who couldn't run a 13 second 100 meter dash was fired, but they only hired people who ran it in 11 seconds in the interview. Nobody's really going to be too worried.