I left a large tech company for a startup partly because of this. The politics of shipping were exhausting. At a certain scale, what gets rewarded isn't always what's valuable.

But I'd push back on the idea that all tech companies work this way. Smaller companies and startups can be different. The feedback loops are shorter, you're closer to customers, and it's harder to hide behind the appearance of shipping.

The trick is finding places where the incentives actually align with the work.