Yes. And no. Generic "you" follows (I am NOT trying to pick on OP). If you are a senior engineer in a team of engineers, do you need your manager around to fac

Yes. And no. Generic "you" follows (I am NOT trying to pick on OP). If you are a senior engineer in a team of engineers, do you need your manager around to facilitate every meeting that discusses "next engineering steps"? If so, are you really senior? If you, as a senior engineer, can't get a new starter up to speed on your code base (without creating a hostile environment), are you really senior? I mean, I am not saying these things should fill 90% of your work-day, but maybe 5%? And when you do them, you should at least be passable at it. A complete lack of soft skills is not really excusable in a senior engineer. But, it is also the case that a senior engineer job is about more than soft skills.