> The only time I saw scrum masters really do anything was “leading” standup and “leading” planning meetings every other month

But, are they supposed to do something else? Been in many companies, and scrum masters are the most useless role out there. Somehow, they seem to be hired for who knows what reasons. Slowly, they are becoming less popular though. Now the trend seems to be Engineer Directors (middle management between Engineering Managers and C-level executives). Total waste once again.