It’s well known that middle managers love to grow headcount. That doesn’t matter.
If teams aren’t resulting in profit, they’re gonna get pressured to make cuts or will have RIFs imposed on them. I’ve seen this happen at every company, even big seemingly inept monsters like Oracle and IBM.
Those political middle and upper managers who are good at growing headcount are also good at shifting blame. They explain their lack of profit by either not enough headcount or else some other part of the company is letting the down (and they should take over that function so they can succeed next time) etc
If teams aren’t resulting in profit, they’re gonna get pressured to make cuts or will have RIFs imposed on them. I’ve seen this happen at every company, even big seemingly inept monsters like Oracle and IBM.