I don't think the issue is all on the engineers. Empire building at big tech companies is how we get to a place where some engineer can work 5-10 hours per week

I don't think the issue is all on the engineers. Empire building at big tech companies is how we get to a place where some engineer can work 5-10 hours per week doing essentially nothing of value. The entire management track is set up to promote people who have X number of reports under them. A manager who makes 1b in revenue with a team of 10 will be passed up for a promotion over a team of 50 that makes 100m but looks busy.