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But humility and integrity are "soft" qualities, outside raw technical prowess.

A talented jerk is a scourge of a project (especially in open-source): the engineering might attract others in the short term, but being a jerk makes long-term interactions painful and not very fruitful.



Talented jerks can absolutely destroy a team. In my experience, the actual degree of coding prowess turns out to be significantly less important than the ability to collaborate.


Sure, but these are qualities that come across in how you do the work, that make people want to build relationships with you.

Brilliant jerks are bad, but engineers also tend to resent politicians.




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