The most difficult people I've worked with were not because of technical reasons, but due to reasons outside of that: inability to disagree constructively, unwillingness to compromise, or just general assholes. That kind of stuff.
Someone without the required technical chops can be useless, which isn't good, but these people can be worse than useless as they can derail and/or demoralize an entire team. I've seen it happen; it's not pretty.
This isn't unique to younger people, but in my experience the risk is quite a bit higher in younger people. I say this also as someone who, in hindsight, was quite difficult to work with when I was younger for various reasons. As I've grown older, I've learned a thing or two and I think that now I'm actually a fairly nice person to work with (I hope so, anyway...)
Everything else being equal, I'd rather take someone with a 9 (out of 10) on soft skills and a 6 or 7 on technical skills, than someone with a 3 or 4 on soft skills but a 10 on technical skills.
> Everything else being equal, I'd rather take someone with a 9 (out of 10) on soft skills and a 6 or 7 on technical skills, than someone with a 3 or 4 on soft skills but a 10 on technical skills.
I agree, I've even had to reverse my own team's policy on this at work : I used to think the technical stuff was the most important and pushed my team towards hiring exclusively the technically smart people, but I have been proven wrong over and over again by those "smart" engineers I vouched for.
"Smart" isn't just technical skills anyway. You can have all the technical chops in the world, but if you never listen to anyone else, insist on doing things the One True Right Way™, and are unable to admit that you're wrong, then effectively you're not actually all that smart, are you? "Smart" is really a combination of skill and attitude.
Indeed, the smartest people I've met are the nicest people to chat with and always ask questions instead of affirming themselves. As you point out, skills + attitude is the smart way since everyone wants to be around a nice and skilled person.
Someone without the required technical chops can be useless, which isn't good, but these people can be worse than useless as they can derail and/or demoralize an entire team. I've seen it happen; it's not pretty.
This isn't unique to younger people, but in my experience the risk is quite a bit higher in younger people. I say this also as someone who, in hindsight, was quite difficult to work with when I was younger for various reasons. As I've grown older, I've learned a thing or two and I think that now I'm actually a fairly nice person to work with (I hope so, anyway...)
Everything else being equal, I'd rather take someone with a 9 (out of 10) on soft skills and a 6 or 7 on technical skills, than someone with a 3 or 4 on soft skills but a 10 on technical skills.