>Well at least postdocs have a PhD

That's the point. This is the bar.

>Still, sometimes, frauds do slip through.

You're projecting your experience in IT on academia, and I can't emphasize strongly enough how far off you are. Which was why this piece was written: that reality is already here in software engineering. The entire point is: if this seems absurd in the context of the piece, why would you accept this anywhere else?

In any case, this satire wasn't written from the point of view of a fraud. And if it doesn't seem outright absurd to you, you need to get a reality check.