Difficult people are not “assholes”. Someone saying “your engineering practices are shoddy and the quality of your code is bad” does not make them an asshole. It makes them french maybe.
My point is that there are people low on the agreeableness scale, and they can often be exceptional engineers. You have to manage them, yes, but taking the easy way out of “i’ll sack anyone who’s prickly” will mean a shit team. You need people (or at least one), who will say “that won’t work because…” “this is bad because…” “this will fail because…”.
> My point is that there are people low on the agreeableness scale, and they can often be exceptional engineers.
Not true. Every single egregious asshole who is unable or unwilling to work in a team environment is quite bluntly incompetent. No degree of perceived hard skills mitigate how incompetent these types are. Engineering is predominantly a social activity. Team output is amplified by a collaborative environment. If you fail at basic tasks such as coordinating work and you manage to antagonize anyone around you then your net contribution to the project is negative.
A person who points out flaws is not an asshole. An asshole is a person who breaks rules and who breaks trust. We're talking about the latter, not the former.
My point is that there are people low on the agreeableness scale, and they can often be exceptional engineers. You have to manage them, yes, but taking the easy way out of “i’ll sack anyone who’s prickly” will mean a shit team. You need people (or at least one), who will say “that won’t work because…” “this is bad because…” “this will fail because…”.