[NotGMan]

From a pure tech perspective the article is correct.

But the problem with this approach is that in real life the majority of people are not like this. Many people are vastly overconfident and arrogant in their skills, I've had encounters with very good developers who simple refused to even hear an alternative solution or who did not do the most basic stuff to verify certain things before starting implementing them even though someone who had tons of experience in a certain niche compared to him told him to.

So a truly great engineer also needs to be arrogant/assertive/loud as that is the only way to fight other arrogant people. The "quiet confident" engineers opinion will be overruled by loud incomptent engineers.

[mistrial9]

there is also the case of Stephan Wolfram ...

physically large, loud, bossy, no doubt talented but relentlessly seeking to shout out others, "look at me" more than others, take control of budgets and company leadership at every opportunity.. and do some math. Build a system of slave-like labor from wanna-be's and then mercilessly and ruthlessly take their work as your own, demand that it is all yours, and take legal control with "investors" on your side.

source: direct contact with said jerk Wolfram

[payala]

I did have this situation several times in the past. One thing that has worked well for me is to be a bit of a stubborn mofo in challenging people with arguments and not let go so easily.

I don't think you need to be arrogant, but you do need to know how to argue rationally. At least this works quite well with germanic-origin folks, maybe not so well in other contexts.

Another thing that helps is reputation, you do need to build that and that allows your arguments to be heard. No need really to be arrogant and loud IMO still.

This reputation thing, also brings other problems, because it's not good when people don't challenge you, then you need to find skeptics. This is very necessary when you do high end stuff.

[99954bb63ccc]

> So a truly great engineer also needs to be arrogant/assertive/loud as that is the only way to fight other arrogant people. The "quiet confident" engineers opinion will be overruled by loud incomptent engineers.

What is the underlying cause here? Or is this just a product of group psychology...(?) I feel like it's typically weak and/or incompetent management but hesitating to jump right to that because it's largely out of most people's control beyond a job change.