Frankly, what you're describing just sounds normal to me after a decade+ at BigCo, and you just have to lean into it, embrace it. It's completely normal to hav

Frankly, what you're describing just sounds normal to me after a decade+ at BigCo, and you just have to lean into it, embrace it. It's completely normal to have a formal interviewing process / loop with feedback forms and debrief sessions and stuff... but for candidates that pass that, they just earn a meeting/interview with the big boss who then singlehandedly makes the decision regardless of all the earlier feedback from lower level folks, and occasionally hires people they've worked with before completely bypassing the formal interview process + everybody else. It's also completely normal for big bosses to be in the weeds of the work and people two or three levels below them, either directly, or by telling managers under them exactly what to do with their reports. Essentially, the interviewing process and org chart / reporting lines are just there for show, and to fool naive folks, but actually it's totally normal for decisions to be made outside of the process, or by higher folks directly driving things several levels under them. I think you just have to embrace it, work directly with the director and everyone else and earn their trust, and don't expect to ever have autonomy/authority over anything in a company that you don't own.