In my experience there is a dynamics similar to bullying: employees compete for visibility (height unironically helps here lol) and shipping new projects, while

In my experience there is a dynamics similar to bullying: employees compete for visibility (height unironically helps here lol) and shipping new projects, while pushing away the rest of us, naturally leading to this distribution of roles. You have to outbully the bullies (and develop a political presence where people have a bit of fear when they think about pushing their maintenance duty onto you), or at least to become inconvenient for such work. It's office politics, plain and simple.