Managing difficult software engineers
3.4. The Procrastinator
3.5. The Lone Wolf
3.6. The Negative Nancy
3.7. The Over-Promiser
3.8. The Know-It-All
3.9. The Silent Type
3.10. The Perfectionist
3.11. The Unreliable One
3.12. The Conflict Instigator
3.13. The Burned-Out Employee<p>I have experienced myself being one of each type of "difficult" software engineer during my career. Not every day, not every month, but from time to time. Sometimes because of the environment (e.g., type of company I worked for), sometimes because of internal issues (e.g., family issues), and sometimes because I really felt like that (e.g.,  when I was in my mid 20s).<p>I haven't met any engineer who's never shown any traits of the thirteen "personas" listed in the post. If you're looking for an engineer that has zero traits like the ones listed above, you are perhaps looking for a robot.