The problem here seems to be that the person was unwilling or unable to ask for help when they needed it, not that they don't know math per se.

I don't know how to do that either, but "winging it" is not something that would occur to me. First I'd Google it and try to figure it out. If it turns out to be nontrivial, I would just ask for help.

And I wouldn't feel the least bit bad about it. After all, those same highly educated folks need my help with e.g. git a lot more often than most software needs serious math :)

The problem was the "engineer" did not know how to design an RC circuit, one of the simplest electronic circuits, in Electronics 101.

Would you rather pay an engineer days to fail to solve a basic problem, or pay a real engineer 15 minutes to solve it?