Interesting you say that. I've met several colleagues who were clearly incompetent and conning their way out, but somehow were very good at _faking it until they made it_. I think it mostly happened when their advisor somehow didn't want to admit to others or themselves they were wrong in trusting that person to begin with. Kinda like a _sunk cost fallacy_ in terms of having hired them.

south_korea_ln

devs

Have you ever dealt with an imposter coworker?

zuspotirko

Not a coworker.  It's kinda hard to disguise incompetency in academia.  Dealt with a lot of students with these tendencies, but then they get hit on the exams.