LLMs could be a good option to navigating this sludge. Fight fire with fire.

Another option is work smarter (not harder, because nothing I do is anywhere near “hard work”) to get into a position where you can tell them to get fucked. Don’t want to pay my hotel bill? Oh well, good luck finding someone else to rework your auth system. Call me back when the outsourced monkeys you hire end up putting you in the news for a security breach. But at least you saved a few hundred bucks on hotel fees, great job!

This is something management and executive positions do on a continuous basis - using their position and “prestige” to commend respect and bend the rules. But as an engineer with context of a critical system you often have more leverage, it’s just a matter of using it strategically (as engineers we initially start out playing the good game, but the thing is that everyone else is trying to fuck you - the challenge is learning to fuck back).

I keep a beginner’s Python book in reserve for those conflictual meetings where some idiot beancounter or manager has a problem with me. When I’m ready to walk (and at this point I have a very short fuse for obvious bad faith), I offer it to them as a tool to help them finish my job; not a single soul has yet to take me up on that offer. Some idiots suggested me the way to the door a few months later (offer gladly accepted, and replacement gig acquired) and watching from a distance it’s clear they would’ve been better off actually taking that book off me - either for themselves or the idiots they tried to hand my tasks to.

The only way to enact change is to actually make the noxious behaviour costly. If you take on the costs yourself there’s no reason for them not to persevere with their misguided strategy.