> Having the admiration and respect of the next generation of developers at your company offers far more leverage than the nebulous prestige

“Prestige” and “respect” are essentially synonyms, and careerwise respect of developers in the org often is not as important as respect of management.

> What could provide more organizational political power than building a hierarchy of capable engineers that consistently come to you when they need help?

Being perceived by management as delivering results rather than being the one behind the scenes enabling others to be perceived that way.