I think this article misses the point. I don't think many engineers are averse to collaborating, advocating for their work and using soft skills. Politics also entails lots of complex human relationships - favoritism, rivalries, jealousy, egomania etc. these play out in different ways in different orga depending on how people and teams are incentivised and arranged. But the net result for the engineer trying to navigate this is can be a lot of wasted energy and frustration. Not always of course, and some orgs really don't have as much of a problem. I suspect it's more common in larger orgs with a traditional corporate culture.