As a techy on the spectrum (only naive social skills) starting out their career I've had one or two pretty abusive work situations involving a lot of adversarial psychology and I'm terrified. It affects my productivity, stress levels and life.
How important are these for your job?
If by social psychology you mean: knowing how to navigate social situations gracefully, and form meaningful connections -- then I would say it's the most important skill even over technical ability.<p>However viewing it as Machiavellian/adversarial makes me feel like you have the wrong perspective on social skills. Fostering a culture of trust and connectedness is the key; deception is part of the game but no more than a tiny percentage of it.
If you're just a normal tech worker then they're not very important. Sure you may lose out on the absolute best outcome, but 80% of the 1/2 million that top-end tech workers get nowadays isn't bad.<p>The skills you're looking for aren't really political or Machiavellian. It's not scheming to stand up for oneself. As other posters said you ought not to put social skills in the same bucket as Machiavellian traits.<p>Now as for others, if you're trying to be in business like many on HN do, then you absolutely need to be politically savvy as the business world is filled with MBA sharks and hustlers. It's not all evil and knives in your back, but a certain level of shall we say hyperawareness of social jostling is necessary to get ahead. Business is basically politics, but your reward is just more money and not power over life and death.
Some places are worse than others.<p>I had a boss who claimed to had previously supervised both David Cutler (at DEC) and Linus Torvalds (at Transmeta) I don't know if he always was so evil (he had a life-changing injury that probably made his attitude a lot worse) but I caught him lying to me and to other workers. He used "one-on-one meetings" as a tool to gaslight people and to this day the "one-on-one" is a bad smell for me.<p>Other places (like where I am now) have been much better.
I wouldn’t put Machiavellian traits in the same sentence as social skills.<p>Office requires something closer to street smarts than true Machiavellian traits.<p>Often simply knowing when to watch your back is enough