> To the point where good salesmen make a “career” and become your bosses without any correlation to their work abilities or even management skills.

The few times I've seen this actually happen at a company, it was not the kind of company I wanted to work for long-term anyway.

If the company is so broken that the wrong people are being promoted while the right people are being ignored constantly, there will be bigger problems than you simply missing a promotion.

The one startup I worked for that had this problem chronically (combined with some nepotism) did a bee-line run straight for insolvency and then collapsed. Everyone on the ground floor saw it coming. Some people still tried to race for promotions and upward career trajectory there, but the smart ones invested their effort in getting out.

That said, I've also worked at some companies where the right people were getting promoted but there were groups of people with sour grapes he were always upset it wasn't them. It's never something everyone agrees on.

Every single major tech company that I am aware of (admittedly only two from 1st and 2nd hand knowledge) require you to submit a promo doc showing you “operating at the level you want to get promoted to”. You only can show that by getting those plum opportunities and that only happens through building the right relationships with the right people and knowing how to navigate corporate culture.