[underwater]

I've been in the position of managing this person. After a lot of effort and too much time I realised I really couldn't do anything for him.

I am not in the business of fixing gaping personality issues. And any work related coaching was impossible due to his victim mentality and inability to accept feedback.

Some people asked if your engineer was technically gifted. For me the answer is it doesn't matter. The toxic attitude always undermines any technical contributions they makes. Even a talented asshole just ends up taking on more and more critical projects, which widens their sphere of negative influence.

[jmcgough]

This has been my experience as well. Coaching is part of your job if you want to be a lead or a manager, but it can be very difficult to coach people who aren't receptive to feedback.

When I started as a lead I devoted a lot of time and energy to someone who was underperforming and difficult to work with (and whose self-perception didn't match reality) when I should have devoted myself more to engineers who were doing well and receptive to feedback.