I believe that most trained UI/UX designers (ie those who have internalized that UX is supposed to help people and not just how fancy or standard conformant you

I believe that most trained UI/UX designers (ie those who have internalized that UX is supposed to help people and not just how fancy or standard conformant you can get) do build pretty great designs, but I’ve noticed a lot of ego in this area from design leaders in my personal experience. Nearly every time design becomes political and every change needs to be conformant to even the most minute standards even if they may not have any material effects on the product. I think the field just has a lot of shitty “leaders”, most of the “grunts” I’ve worked with have been incredibly helpful and willing to think out of the box to make UX easier.