> I have never heard this sentence said by anyone who wasn't deeply invested in status and perception games.

100% agree. It’s almost always an engineer who’s used to being respected because they’re an engineer and have 0 soft skills.

In feedback and promo docs my leadership and soft skills were called out as exemplary and distinctively strong.

If anything it's the opposite. I don't think my technical skills are as strong as some peers at my level. A big part of the difficulty is that the other engineer is more experience in certain technologies than I am. I'm self-aware enough to recognize those cases, and don't try to override him.