From a lot of what I've heard there is trouble hiring / retaining line-level managers -- engineering managers are usually the ones thinking about and negotiatin

From a lot of what I've heard there is trouble hiring / retaining line-level managers -- engineering managers are usually the ones thinking about and negotiating roadmaps among multiple teams. When you have developers filling this role ad hoc, it can be difficult for them to context switch from low-level technical concerns to operational business concerns. So the low-level technical concerns are the ones that get focused on rather than being focused on some overarching business-led strategy. Not picking on Etsy here in particular as lots of companies have this problem. But it's not something people often think about as being crucial for good engineering culture.