Now, to place this in context--was this at a company in Japan, with (by you even!) well-documented social norms about how technically incompetent employees are dealt with, or was this with a company with more conventional engineering culture?
This is not a Japanese-only thing. It is a thing so common in America that there is a named test to detect it -- FizzBuzz [+] -- and this test, or one like it, actually catches many people out.
[+] c.f. Any of the following and note that they're from the nation of, ahem, conventional engineering culture:
Not that it invalidates your larger point, but I feel I should point out that I invented FizzBuzz while primarily interviewing European candidates in London :)
