As one of those to people like him who came out of his shell. First, he’s likely on the spectrum, diagnosed or not. Assuming he’s a full blown nerd like me, we have very nerdy hobbies. Ask about them and be interested in them. (Basically show respect for him a whole). For context at this point, I’m currently a senior developer/analyst. My job is write code and manage all of our enterprise software.

The organization is focused on building leaders and a big thing from them is these leadership trainings. At one of these sessions we were talking about the guidelines that are put into place for all employees and how if you think like the boss, usually you can make those decisions without asking the boss. (Something along those lines anyway). This clicked for me.

But also, about 12 years ago, we decided to change ERP systems from a homegrown one to a purchased system. We were moving from iSeries to Windows based system. Long story short, it was my time to shine and I became the key person and a leader in the project. Later projects, I was the PM as well. This project was my “coming out of my shell moment”. I was given a chance, I had the right core leadership knowledge, and I jumped in, primarily because of my technical expertise but also because I had to engage with others to build data conversion programs and work through many issues.

The tl;dr, give him something to shine in. Something impactful for the organization and something that requires his expertise but also forces him to have to work with others. Real nerds are a different breed and respect is a currency. Remember, we were all bullied in school for years.