engineering arrogance

Innovation and rapid execution drive success in technology companies. When engineering teams collaborate effectively, they iterate quickly and maintain competitive advantages. However, arrogance within engineering teams can silently erode this foundation. Arrogance, ego and passive-aggressive attitudes within teams can stifle creativity, foster hostility, and hinder innovation.

What is Engineering Arrogance? #

Engineering arrogance manifests when technical expertise becomes a barrier for others. It transforms code reviews into battlegrounds, technical decisions into power plays, and learning opportunities into ego threats. Instead of driving innovation, this behavior weaponises expertise for personal validation, prioritising ego over teamwork.

The impacts surface in daily engineering work through ego battles during code reviews, inflexible “my way or the highway” mentalities, gatekeeping of knowledge, and undermining of new ideas. While not every team experiences all these behaviors, even a few can poison team dynamics. When arrogance becomes ingrained in engineering culture, it leads to something far worse: technology stagnation.

This mindset fundamentally corrupts the purpose of technical expertise. Rather than serving as a foundation for collaboration and growth, engineering arrogance builds barriers where bridges for collaboration should exist, ultimately undermining the very innovation it claims to protect.

Ego in Engineering Arrogance #

Engineering expertise naturally builds confidence. Yet unchecked ego transforms that confidence into an obstacle. While healthy confidence drives engineers to excel and push boundaries, ego left unchecked is dangerous, converting constructive technical discussions into battles for dominance.

This transformation often begins subtly. Engineers start equating their technical expertise with their professional worth. Every code review and design discussion feels like a referendum on their competence. When an engineer’s identity becomes intrinsically tied to their technical decisions, admitting mistakes transforms from a learning opportunity into a perceived threat, and this defensive posture erodes the collaborative environment needed for innovation.

The impact compounds over time in unpredictable ways. Senior engineers might cling to outdated patterns. They dismiss fresh ideas to maintain their perceived authority, turning technical discussions into exercises in defending territory rather than exploring solutions. Engineers may double down on problematic approaches instead of acknowledging mistakes. These choices turn temporary technical compromises into permanent architectural decisions that live with projects for years.

These behaviours eventually reshape the systems themselves into rigid structures resistant to change and innovation. Teams spend more time maintaining legacy approaches and accumulating technical debt than evolving their systems to meet future needs. What begins as personal ego turns into institutional stagnation. Resulting in platforms becoming difficult to change as the mindsets that maintain them.

Innovation dies quietly. Teams stop brainstorming freely, fearing ridicule or dismissal. Technical discussions lose their vibrancy. What should be dynamic exploration becomes a predictable exercise in confirming existing beliefs. This quiet conformity doesn’t just stifle individual creativity—it systematically undermines the collaborative innovation that drives technology forward, leaving teams trapped in cycles of maintaining increasingly outdated systems.

Toxic Code Reviews: The Battleground for Ego #

Code reviews should make code better and help teams grow together. But when arrogance creeps in, they turn into painful ego battles where showing technical superiority matters more than actual improvement.

Nitpicking is probably the most common toxic review pattern. A reviewer gets hung up on tiny details like variable names or where the brackets go, completely missing the bigger picture. Sure, coding standards matter - but when someone’s correcting every little thing just to show they’re in charge, it’s not about code quality anymore. It wastes everyone’s time and kills motivation to improve things.

Then there’s the reviewers who can’t be bothered to explain themselves. They drop comments like “this is bad” or “needs work” without saying why. It’s like they’re too important to explain their thinking. When engineers get this kind of useless feedback, they either have to guess what the reviewer wants or go back and forth endlessly. Pretty soon people stop trying to contribute meaningfully.

The worst offenders take it public. They’ll mock code in team channels with comments like “you clearly don’t understand how things work here” or “this is what happens when people don’t learn our architecture first.”. Instead of helping someone learn, they’re just showing off their supposed superiority. Each time this happens, it teaches everyone a lesson: keep your head down, don’t try anything new, and definitely don’t ask questions that might make you look inexperienced.

When code reviews become about ego rather than improvement, the whole system breaks down. Good ideas get buried because people are more worried about avoiding criticism than solving problems. Teams that should be collaborating end up divided into camps of harsh reviewers and defensive contributors. The very process that should make engineering better ends up holding everyone back.

Technological Stagnation #

Engineering arrogance kills innovation in predictable ways. It murders risk-taking and every mistake gets ridiculed in code reviews or design meetings, engineers learn to play it safe. Instead of trying bold solutions, they stick to what won’t attract attention. The codebase fills up with minor tweaks and safe changes while big architectural problems go unsolved.

This safety-first mentality spreads. Engineers stop speaking up in meetings. They keep their ideas to themselves rather than risk getting shot down. Pretty soon, the loudest voices - usually the most arrogant ones - are the only ones heard. The team ends up doing things “the way we’ve always done them” not because it’s right, but because challenging the status quo isn’t worth the hassle.

The damage gets worse when senior engineers start hoarding knowledge. They treat their expertise like a treasure to guard rather than something to share. Junior engineers struggle with the same problems over and over because the “experts” are too busy proving how smart they are to actually teach anyone. Each team ends up solving the same problems differently because knowledge is stuck in silos.

All of this results in a codebase that looks exactly like the team culture that built it - rigid, fragmented, and resistant to change. New features take forever because everyone’s afraid to touch the “critical” parts that only one person understands. Technical debt piles up because fixing it would mean admitting previous approaches were wrong. The platform becomes a museum of past decisions that everyone’s afraid to update.

This stagnation costs money and time. Teams move slowly not because they’re being careful, but because they’re paralysed. Innovation dies - buried under layers of “that’s not how we do things here” and “you don’t understand the context.”. What started as engineering arrogance ends as engineering paralysis.

Passive-Aggressive Arrogance #

Not all engineering arrogance is obvious. Sometimes it’s hidden in subtle behaviors - the eye rolls during standups, or that teammate who always says “interesting…” in a tone that clearly means “that’s stupid.” This quieter version of arrogance might seem less harmful than outright criticism, but it’s just as toxic to team culture.

You’ll spot it in a hundred little ways. There’s the engineer who sits silently through design discussions, then sends passive-aggressive messages picking apart decisions after everyone’s left the room. Or the one who responds to new ideas with “Well, you can try that if you want…” in a tone that suggests you’re about to crash and burn. They’ll agree to changes in meetings but then never quite find time to review the PR, letting it rot in the queue until everyone forgets about it.

The damage runs deep because it’s harder to call out. When someone says “I’m just asking questions…” while systematically undermining a technical decision, or responding to every suggestion with “maybe you know something I don’t…” they’re creating doubt while maintaining plausible deniability. These behaviors shut down innovation just as effectively as direct criticism, but they do it so quietly that many teams don’t realise what’s happening until their culture is thoroughly poisoned.

These passive-aggressive engineers often see themselves as the “voice of reason” or the “technical conscience” of the team. But instead of openly discussing concerns, they express disapproval through sighs in meetings, frowning, pointed questions that aren’t really questions, and minimal engagement with anything they didn’t propose. When their ideas aren’t chosen, they’ll technically comply while doing everything possible to prove they were right all along - even if it means quietly undermining team decisions.

This behavior spreads. Other engineers start adopting the same tactics because direct communication feels too risky. Soon you’ve got a team full of people speaking in subtexts and hidden meanings instead of actually solving problems. Technical discussions become exercises in reading between the lines, and the energy that should go into innovation gets spent on navigating personality politics instead.

Strategies for Combating Arrogance #

Fighting engineering arrogance isn’t about grand gestures - it’s about changing daily habits and interactions. The fix starts with both individual engineers and their leaders making different choices in everyday situations.

For engineers, it begins with letting go of code ownership. Your code isn’t your baby - it’s just one possible solution to a problem. When someone suggests changes, they’re not attacking you personally. They’re trying to make the solution better. Try responding to feedback with curiosity: “That’s an interesting point - could you help me understand your concerns?”. Instead of defending your approach, explore alternatives. Remember that the best engineers aren’t the ones who write perfect code - they’re the ones who help their teams deliver better solutions.

If you’re leading engineering teams, you’ve got the power to reshape the culture through your actions. When was the last time you admitted a mistake in front of your team? Or openly changed your mind after hearing a junior engineer’s perspective? These moments matter. Show your team it’s okay to be wrong sometimes. Celebrate the engineer who caught a serious bug in their own code before it hit production. Highlight the team that scrapped two weeks of work because they found a better approach. Make it clear that learning beats looking smart.

The real change happens in small moments. It’s the senior engineer taking time to explain a complex system to a new hire. It’s the team lead who asks for input instead of dictating solutions. It’s the developer who starts their code review with what they learned from reading their colleague’s approach. These daily choices might feel small, but they will slowly transform the culture from one of competition to one of collective growth.

Building a better engineering culture is not a one-time fix - it is an ongoing practice. The goal is not to eliminate all ego (we’re human after all), but to create an environment where learning and improvement matter more than looking smart. When teams get this right, they don’t just write better code - they build a place where great engineers want to stay and grow.

Conclusion #

Engineering arrogance isn’t born from having the smartest person in the room - it comes from creating environments where everyone can contribute their best work. Collaborative innovation flourishes when arrogance is set aside in favor of humility and curiosity. Teams don’t just tolerate diverse opinions, they actively seek them out.

The real impact happens in daily choices: how we review code, how we share knowledge, and how we respond to new ideas. These small moments shape whether our teams build bridges or walls between each other.

The next time you’re about to dismiss an idea because “that’s not how we do things here,” pause. Ask yourself what you might learn instead. What looks like a mistake might be the seed of your next breakthrough.

Building an environment of trust and respect isn’t just good for team morale - it drives real technological progress. When engineers feel safe to experiment and contribute, they create solutions that last.