That is what I meant. I've worked with a lot of expensive engineers who created net negative value, drained the resources of everyone around them, and would have created a more productive team simply by departing and being replaced with no one.

I think it’s possible to have a -X engineer.. someone who might accomplish some amount of work but then also create a lot more work for everyone else, enough that they’re actually a net drain in productivity. I’m sure there are quite a few -NX managers as well