> It’s not like we have a term like “individual contributor” or anything in the industry.

Perhaps I'm missing something here.

To me "individual contributor" means anyone who is NOT: A (technical) "Lead", "Chief", "Architect", or (possibly) "Staff" anything, and has no management or team-leader responsibilities.

Alas, I’ve learned that while everyone wants to hire them to fix their hideously fucked systems, they really don’t enjoy being told that their systems are, in fact, hideously fucked. They’d much prefer you quietly put out fires while biting your tongue about how they aren’t actually fixing any root causes.

I'm not saying there can't be very clear counter examples, I guess the overall sense though is that "being a team player' is generally considered an attractive quality in any employee. If A is a team player and B isn't, and they're otherwise equivalent, you're probably going to take/keep A.

It's not like (most) hiring managers put "not a team player" in the pro column.