Is this really broadly true? I worked for a FAANG for a ~year and half and was constantly over-burdened (rarely with enjoyable or challenging technical work).
I assumed outside of the TikTok "Day in the Life" PMs most folks were grinding away on build issues 50hours a week.
If you are at a startup and working on support tools or platform infrastructure or whatever, maybe you're indispensable. But you'd still be better off if you were doing support tools or platform infrastructure that involves revenue.
(The obvious corollary is that if you work at a startup that doesn't make money, you should find a way to make money, or move to a startup that does make money. I feel like a lot of engineers don't know this.)
Of course, your team can be considered strategic one day, then disbanded the next.
These are very confusing times.
Obviously, if you're the junior hire on a team of 1,000 people doing third-derivative things that relate to revenue, YMMV.