It could also just be plain old overengineering. Like using Django and leaning on all of the magic contained within it just to implement a simple API that could instead be a very small Flask or FastAPI app.
Also, you can pick and choose what to use in Django similarly to Flask - it just has a higher initial learning curve.
Once you get to sufficient levels of complicated, leaning on established, documented, community supported design patterns and abstractions helps vs. sorting out your imports, making bespoke design choices, and doing a bunch of non-core value producing work.