I've been such an engineer: hard to manage, but, I'd dare to say, brilliant. First 5 years of my career were painful: I didn't understand why people were often upset about me, why they wrote poor peer feedback and why I wasn't given the formal role to drive projects. Then I bothered to learn some people skills and corporate politics. These days I don't bother to work more than 2-3 hours a day: most of the time I hang around, talk to people and make connections. Those 2-3 hours are more than enough to deliver piles of work and get outstanding perf reviews. Because I talk a lot to others, everybody generally likes me and I get good feedback. The unused energy and competence goes into side projects. I even started a side company. Now when my manager talks about the importance of showing more leadership, I calmly admit how right he is, and at the end of the day head to a dinner with 2 VPs and one CEO to discuss things related to my company.