[vikascoder]

There are Jerks and Non-Jerks. Also Brilliant Folks and Averae Joes(?). I dont know why we tend to club two different qualities and consider them as a single entity. The question should be, "This employee is a jerk, what to do about it" rather than, "This employee is a brilliant jerk, should we tolerate it". There are enough brilliant people who are excellent human beings with no failings and plenty of mediocre bullies. The employee should conform to common sense behaviour which is compliant to their corporate culture like most tech workers do.

[MBCook]

The problem is non-brilliant jerks are usually a lot easier to get rid of. They can be replaced.

When the jerk is brilliant and necessary (or at least perceived so) management can be much more hesitant. ‘Yes he’s horrible but we can’t operate without him’ or ‘we don’t have the slack to pick up that work’ or ‘it will take too long to train someone new right now’.

They get extra excuses that a medium or low performer wouldn’t.

[s73ver_]

Sadly, that extends to behavior far worse than being a jerk.

[MBCook]

WAY too true.

[on_and_off]

I have been lucky enough to have encountered very few jerks.

We are in a field where cooperation is encouraged and leads to benefits for everybody as long as the team culture allows it.

I did have to work with one jerk in a team of 19 people. He was meh as an engineer. Not awful but not nearly as great as he thought he was, he only had experience for him.

He was the only person extremely protective of his turf (for exemple, he was the only admin on the jenkins server).

It mostly seem to come from poor character and insecurity.

In the end many people (including me) did just not really work with him most of the time and in such a large team it was not really an issue.

The bar for being a jerk brilliant enough for people to bear your insanity is extremely high IMO. There are many great engineers who are also great people, so little reason to settle for a jerk.