The book "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber defines five types of jobs, two of which are "goons" and "box tickers". Goons include hired people who lobby aggressively on behalf of their employer: lobbyists, corporate lawyers, PR specialists. Box tickers are those who use paperwork and process to appear to be busy, even though the real useful work would continue without their intervention.

It's no secret that the top-5 tech firms hire large numbers of lobbyists and corporate lawyers [1].

And I don't think it is a stretch to say that some well-paid engineering positions include work such as maintaining built-in-house duplicates of open source software, or enforcing arbitrary coding standards, that could be considered "box ticking". Present company excluded, of course.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/us/politics/amazon-apple-...