I worked at a big tech company many years ago and it's precisely this disconnect that I will never work for a big successful company again. Successful companies tend to have a lot of "buffer" in terms of resources so they feel no urgency to ensure that resources and time are allocated to something meaningful. The objectives of middle managers are often not aligned with the companies. I've been on projects that were delivered on time and under budget only to be canned just before shipping because after two years the market has shifted. No one in those two years felt the need to change anything or make the hard decisions. Rather it was easier to just act like everything is fine until the last possible moment after wasting 2 years of worth of engineering resources with 50 engineers. The problem isn't you.