[buran77]

Politics, nepotism, ass-kissing, or incompetence exist everywhere and at every level. Just the byproduct of not living in a utopia.

But beyond that there's way more to building than writing code or laying bricks. These aren't the career defining challenges you think they are. Solving problems is, and most problems in any non-trivial activity are not solved with code or more precise brick placement.

So while you should be able to code and lay bricks enough to be comfortable in any conversation in the team, you'll get away with not being the best at that if you have skills useful for the bigger picture.

When someone conceived the whole thing and considered all the implications properly from the start, when they "politicked" their way into smoothing the path for the builder to walk and build on, when they "ass-kissed" to get the resources they need, then they're certainly a few steps ahead of any junior or middle even before writing a line of code.