The Real MVPs Are Your Quiet Engineers, Not the Guy Who Talks the Most in Standup
We all know that guy, the one who treats daily standup like open mic night.
He’s got 2 minutes to say what he worked on yesterday, and somehow turns it into a TED Talk about Docker, the roadmap, his weekend hike, and three side quests no one asked for.
Meanwhile, the quiet engineer?
They crushed a blocker, refactored half the backend, and solved a bug that’s haunted the repo since 2019, then said “Yesterday: fixed some auth logic. Today: unit tests.”
And that’s it.
The Loudest One in the Room Is Rarely the Smartest
It’s a dangerous myth: that the most vocal person is the most productive, the most influential, or the most valuable.
Spoiler alert:
Volume ≠ Value.
Loud != Leader.
Verbose != Visionary.
Sometimes, the ones saying the least are the ones making the biggest impact—while the talkers are just… talking.
Real Work Happens in the Silence
Your best engineers might not be “evangelizing their impact” in every meeting.
They might not be grandstanding in retros.
They might not have a Notion doc titled “How I Saved the Sprint.”
What they do have?
- Code that ships
- Systems that scale
- Colleagues that trust them
- A Git history that tells the real story
They don’t need a parade. They need a leader who sees them.
So… Are You Paying Attention?
As a leader, it’s your job to look past the noise.
Spot the quiet brilliance.
Reward the consistent ones, not just the charismatic ones.
That doesn’t mean ignoring your extroverts, it means not equating visibility with value.
It means saying, “I see you,” even if they didn’t shout to be seen.
TL;DR
- The loudest voice in standup ≠ the most valuable contributor
- Quiet engineers often carry your team—recognize them
- Value impact over airtime
- Be the leader who notices what others overlook
