I've worked with plenty of these people in the past, and I've mostly abandoned hope for them. Most of these issues stem of from a lack of understanding in the

I've worked with plenty of these people in the past, and I've mostly abandoned hope for them. Most of these issues stem of from a lack of understanding in the importance of designing a system that is simple consistent, where the least possible context is required to work with it, that is robust to refactoring and debugging, that other can work with as well, etc. Unless they're actively trying to improve themselves with the criteria you dictate, it'll be an endless battle to get good output from them -- the management equivalent of the relationship cliché "They're damaged but I can change them". My only approach now is to isolate them in discardable islands of code or firing them to improve team unity. Only keep if young and really willing to change and stick around.