Your mileage will vary. IBM used to report that certain programmers might be as much as 100 times as productive as other workers, or more. This kind of thing happens. The same way you herd cats. Your hacker is likely to be willing to suggest answers to problems, if asked.
Most hackers are nearly self-managing.
Check out, in particular, some of the appendices. The entire work is full of clarifications and details of how hackers think. My hacker plays video games on company time. Your hacker is probably stuck on something difficult. Don't worry about it.