I somehow feel something important is not being discussed, and that is competency. Perhaps in Silicon Valley it is normal that engineers take ownership and are smart enough to figure out what is valuable and what is not, but I can assure you that in an average Fortune 500 company this is not the case. In my experience a lot of engineers in these companies don't care about engaging without customers, like to complain about a management and take little responsibility.

You need to have rules (however dumb you might find them), you even need babysitters. There's no going around that. Someone making 1/4h of what a SV engineer makes is highly likely to be less competent.