[bryanrasmussen]

My experience is only as a programmer, maybe HR has kept most of the bad ones out, but I doubt it based on my experiences with HR. So 10-20% is my experience of how many programmers I encounter are bad in a big organization, and bad is a relative thing of course.

But often when I am brought into a big organization there is one out of every 5 programmers that just should be something else. They're not necessarily stupid, just shouldn't program.

on edit: in my experience small organizations don't have quite as bad because for the organization to be able to exist their programmers must be able to program. (for any organization heavily focused on tech of course)