It could be survival instinct instead of egos. Most companies have too many managers. There are places where you have one manager for every 5 engineers. Bonkers!

I work on a software project where I was the only dev, with a scrum master, 2 BAs, and 3 project managers. Along with 4 representatives from Business. It's an absolute nightmare! Recently another dev joined me, but so did about 6 other non devs, I don't even know what they so. This is all to deliver a software feature. I feel I strongly need to get a new job... Someone cry for me.

Funny thing is that in the beginning of agile, scrum master was hardly a dedicated position, it was more of a role. But then, agile at that time was a movement by developers, now it became the turf of project managers.

True. Middle managers probably feel more worth when the five engineers are huddled in a pod around them, usually with headphones on so they can concentrate.