Yeah, this article says things like "understand the big picture" and "keep higher-ups informed about what's really important" and claims this is "good politics." No, that's probably just part of your job. Are there really people out there saying not to do these things? I'm left with the impression that the article is arguing against a straw man, because there is definitely something called workplace politics that engineers (rightly) try to avoid, but it's not what the article seems to be describing.

The thing I call "politics" that engineers like to avoid is making technical decisions based on personal relationships, making who does the work more important than what is being done and how. As a low-level employee, you might have to deal with that to an extent, and thus you should develop the soft skills to navigate that environment. As a higher-level engineer, you should definitely try to eliminate it from any part of the organization that you have influence over. My worry with articles like this is that it spreads the mentality of "it's fine, you can make this work!" and then we're all worse off because we accept the status quo rather than improving the culture.

To be clear, you can't completely eliminate politics from an engineering organization, since people will always take some mental shortcuts, but you absolutely can reduce it, and things will be much better if you do. Not only will your group make better decisions, but it will also be a more pleasant working environment for everyone.