Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig thehiddenprogrammer.com. NS
Answer
thehiddenprogrammer.com. 2 NS ns2.thehiddenprogrammer.com.
thehiddenprogrammer.com. 2 NS ns1.thehiddenprogrammer.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.thehiddenprogrammer.com. 2 A 149.50.96.18
ns2.thehiddenprogrammer.com. 2 A 149.50.99.136
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0