[ryandrake]

Yes, yes yes! This is an interview question I (at big tech) like to ask candidates: "You have a very high priority project and need another team's help. You find they already have many "high priority projects" that they are working on. How do you go about getting this help?" A good answer to this question often separates the actual senior engineers from the junior "Senior Software Engineers". Navigating a corporate bureaucracy and influencing across it where you have no managerial control is a skill you have to develop in Big Tech, and when you get good at it, it's a superpower.