This same jousting over technical windmills happens in other userspace elements of Linux. Linus, for better or worse, keeps a tight rein on what's allowed in the kernel, but when it comes to audio, window management, display, UX, everything is a shitshow of mixed metaphors and dysfunctional interoperability.
Wait... That's not how that works.
Surely they'd have picked this up if it were that straight forward?
Having worked in several top-tier for employee-compensation firms, I can wholeheartedly assure you that best pay does not result in best developers (or any other job function).
It does generally result in a higher “floor” of employee, but that’s about it.
If you spend your time learning about the details of audio playback what kind of additional time do you have to learn leetcode?