I mean at some point we just get generic enough that we have to agree on the ultimate fact that at least somewhere in the management chain someone has to actually know enough engineering to recognize good work from just running around in circles. I agree what you say happens but if good work isn't consistently recognized and you think you've worked on your comms, there's not much else to do really.

> at least somewhere in the management chain someone has to actually know enough engineering to recognize good work from just running around in circles

Unfortunately, this can cut the other way as well where you can have someone incompetent override competence or not even involved people further down which is common during large layoffs

Incompetent CTO can promote incompetent developers to be leads, so now all of the projects from that team will be done terribly. But the CTO can't go back on his decision because he'd rather waste years before getting a result that works acceptably rather than show that he made a mistake.