If you feel like management is "variably talented" in software development... oh, ho. Try some IT security orgs.

It's like going back 40 years in time, where a firm handshake and a golf buddy is enough to land you an exec level job.

Which sucks, because the ground-level work is fascinating and technically difficult and filled with amazing folks!

It's comprised of people who aren't charismatic enough to get on the AI/Crypto grift train, so they have to settle for the security long con.

So you're almost right.

As per a different post, archeologists are only just discovering that tools thought to be made by humans a few thousand years ago were in fact built by monkeys

No wonder people move to the other side. It's just too difficult to cash out.