[shermantanktop]

Of course there's a spectrum here. But when I read someone complain "I did great technical work but POLITICS," there are several possible scenarios:

1. The engineer is reasonable and the people they complain about are craven self-promoters with no real skills

2. The engineer is unreasonable and the people they complain about have normal, regular, business-normative expectations of engineer conduct.

3. Both - the engineer is bad and the self-promoting people are bad.

Your scenario lines up with #1, i think.

I see all three happening. I see many engineers who are gruff, entitled, lack the ability to talk about anything other than their own work, cultivate perceptions of technical status, and seem to actively want to make everyone avoid them. I also see social climbers (#2), but they are easy to spot and not that common in my environment (though others are of course different, including at previous companies).