A friend of mine who I mentored did almost the exact same thing. He was attracted to the high pay, relaxed dress code, and flexible working hours. The difference is he saw what an amazing point in time it is to be a software engineer and understood that the facade would not last long. So he turned his lies into truth. In the interim between being hired and starting the job (2 weeks), he spent over 100 hours coding, reading, pestering me and basically everything he could to become more proficient in LAMP and bash. I helped him and hoped for his success because (1) Schadenfreude is something I avoid and (2) Whenever we hung out, drinks would be on him

This taught me perhaps the most important life lesson I've ever learned: if you want something in this life, you don't ask for it, you don't wait for it, you take People don't give you what you want. And being "deserving" or qualified for something isn't necessarily going to get you what you want. This applies especially to those complaining about making less income than a known fraud.: if you don't demand more money, no one is going to preemptively recognize your talent and pay you what you think you are worth.

As an aside, software engineers are the worst class of salary negotiators I've ever seen. 90% of all the people I've interviewed just accepted the job offer and salary right on the spot without taking time to think it over, mostly because their personality type wanted to avoid anything they perceived as adversarial.