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> Boss approval is literally everything.

This is such a sad corporate loser mentality.

Bosses are humans. They can be wrong. They can be convinced. Even manipulated, if that's your game.

> you’re hired for a job. You’re a glorified and well compensated code monkey

Only if you choose to treat yourself like one. I'm hired for my domain expertise that my bosses lack. I can understand 60-80% of their domain, they can understand 5% of my domain. When I'm saying that feature that they want is a nice-to-have and I don't want to build it unless I see evidence of it's value, they usually listen.

> I’ve yet to meet any hierarchy chains that are truly open minded to a low level IC saying anything that counters them

I worked at multiple startups (between 4 and 100 in size) and I always had a voice, even early in my career. Maybe you're the problem?

> you’ll become a bootlicker and actually make progress in your career rather than being stuck in senior/staff

Where exactly does the bootlicker progress? A code monkey doesn't become VP/C-level through bootlicking, there are plenty others with much better soft skills. At best you'll be a code monkey turned manager (which is worse than staff).

This is the real answer. Ego is greater than business, money, and code.

> You jump when they say jump

Thankfully sometimes 'they' are the customers paying real money for a product or service that's valuable to them.

But as you say, larger organizations have more room for political distractions on the way to giving that customer what they want.

ahh and finally we get the real answer that careerism is about playing jester to the court of the mad king regardless of any other concerns

if you don't want to be a jester and you want satisfaction doing a good job professionally you need a union