In sports, being a team player would mean something like you don’t play football as if its all a one man show. But at work isn’t this kind of independence a desirable thing? Like salespeople who have to carry their own weight at all times? At this point, looking at all these job ads is giving me the impression that what it really means is “submissive and obedient”.
It’s a very interesting read for sure - her book is on the topic of introversion (vs extraversion) in particular, and she has a TED talk on this topic from which you can get an idea of what she talks about in the book if you’re interested. In fact your example of the engineers is one of the problems she pointed out in the book - in how the world often falls into the trap of prioritising traits, like how well a person can talk/present/sell themselves or how good one works in a group, over the actual substance of a person.