I’ve been part of organizational discussions. Every manager ive worked with has actively fought, and fought hard, to keep, promote, or get pay raises for their employees. They don’t just bend over and say “okay boss” if asked to cut people.

If you treat your managers like soulless entities and don’t build relationships with them, they’ll probably do the same to you. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

I work at Amazon and I’ve had almost the opposite experience. There are dedicated career check ins twice a year that managers are required to have (separate from pay change discussions). Each of the orgs I’ve worked in have also had their own career growth things - one of them required quarterly “how are you doing on your career goal?” questionnaires that you were supposed to review with your manager.

Frankly I’ve had _too many_ managers at Amazon wanting to talk about career growth. Maybe it’s just my org, but everyone is obsessed with it.