One of the most surprising things to me after seeing the inside of large tech companies was the amount of utterly incompetent politicians who were hired and con

One of the most surprising things to me after seeing the inside of large tech companies was the amount of utterly incompetent politicians who were hired and constantly promoted due to pedigree, nepotism etc. However, at least for the more junior programmer levels I think you're vastly underestimating the amount that merit matters and gives people opportunities they wouldn't dream of having in non-tech fields.