This isn't really an accurate portrayal of massively used protocol authors. People like Randall Stewart (SCTP, Netflix FreeBSD TCP RACK/BBR), Van Jacobson (TCP

This isn't really an accurate portrayal of massively used protocol authors. People like Randall Stewart (SCTP, Netflix FreeBSD TCP RACK/BBR), Van Jacobson (TCP congestion control, Google BBR), Neal Cardwell, Yuchung Cheng (TCP RACK, BBR) etc. They are all what you might call "technical fellows" in older Electronic/Computer Engineering companies. They probably have significantly more sway than all high level managers on technical direction. I don't know as much about QUIC and WebRTC folks but I highly doubt they are "low level engineers".