>top-tier engineers are not generally qualified in terms of non-technical requirements
It's just that both sets of somewhat orthogonal skills are less likely to reside in one person.
An analogy from baseball is why are pitchers generally lousy hitters (even pre-DH)? Did they get less practice? Probably. But it's also the case that (again even pre-DH) any ability to do more than lay down a bunt was absolutely a nice little bonus but their job 1 and 2 and 3 is pitching the ball.
On the other hand, even the best fielding shortstop in the league still needs to have a half-way decent batting average, even if they can get away with a lower one than other positions.
This analogy is interesting because it kind of proves you're both 'right', depending on the environment.
In middle/high school, there is often 'that kid' who _is_ the best at all skills - they are the pitcher, they bat cleanup, they do everything.
In the pros, though, that's virtually unheard of these days, because the amount of time it takes to specialize in a skill sufficiently to make it to the majors is so extreme it precludes you from being able to do that for multiple skills, with rare exceptions.
Not disagreeing with you, or at least I don't intend to, but I definitely remember playing against 'that kid' when I played baseball in middle and high school. Same analogy for the kid who's great at several sports in HS but has to specialize to get the DI scholarship or go pro, etc.
It's just that both sets of somewhat orthogonal skills are less likely to reside in one person.
An analogy from baseball is why are pitchers generally lousy hitters (even pre-DH)? Did they get less practice? Probably. But it's also the case that (again even pre-DH) any ability to do more than lay down a bunt was absolutely a nice little bonus but their job 1 and 2 and 3 is pitching the ball.
On the other hand, even the best fielding shortstop in the league still needs to have a half-way decent batting average, even if they can get away with a lower one than other positions.