Hard skills are surprisingly small percentage of the overall picture of the person from employment perspective. An excellent coder who is hard to manage, discuss, doesn't work well in team, or has trouble to simply do as asked for next 2 months because its a priority for the company but definitely not fun, is... passable for many companies, the bigger the more true.

In my experience, quite a few of these hardcore coders lack in 'human' aspects. The employer can go an extra mile to manage them appropriately (ie keep their work fun), but its an extra overhead that many don't want to undertake.

But of course the group of those who have good people, communication and/or management skills are usually priceless for the employer.