> Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings, then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You can never win.

Why aren't your developers empowered to say "I don't need to be there" to a meeting?

Why aren't your developers in the loop enough to know about upcoming conversations so they can ask if their presence would be useful?

Every job where I've grown responsibility, I find that not only did those interactions become possible, they've became expected of me.

But then again, my experience was built at mission-focused companies. I know a lot of "tech" these days is stay-in-your-lane companies.