[hiremecowards]

Oh please. All engineers are arrogant, usually, proportionally to their skills.

That does not mean that they do not understand team work or other engineers being different from them and it does not mean they can't sit down and coach other engineers. They do, but when the other engineers are too lazy to improve themselves, the manager values quantity over quality anyway, what can they do?

In many situations, a mix of arrogance and self-confidence it's the only defense a skilled engineer has against the mass of unqualified idiots steering a project the wrong way.

Passing up brilliant people at this level does not solve the problem: they are brilliant enough to become competition.

It's precisely about the cowardice of accepting that there are insanely bright and skilled professionals, right in your team or in your company and one way or another you have to deal with them, or they will deal with you.