I wouldn't scope this down to tech. Incompetence and professional disinterest is by far the norm across all industries. Career meritocracy is, more or less, a

I wouldn't scope this down to tech. Incompetence and professional disinterest is by far the norm across all industries. Career meritocracy is, more or less, a myth. In technical fields, there is a merit baseline that has to be cleared, but after that, any further relationship between merit and position evaporates. That is inescapable. People sometimes think they've escaped it and found the promised land of meritocracy, but they haven't. That usually just means they have a politically-skilled manager who is good at keeping their belief in the fairy tale alive. I agree that a good engineer is not necessarily a good engineering manager, but I don't believe there are good engineering managers who are not also good engineers.