I am sure these techniques are effective; but they're disingenious and self serving.
If I see a staff engineer consistently trying to latch onto company initiatives and strategy goals to get funding for their pet project, I would like to fire them
Why not try to actually solve the issues, and spend the politics budget on making sure people noticed? Even if you failed on the politics thing you've at least done something useful
You're implying that the pet projects don't align to the goals. If the person is actually technically competent and has good ideas, then it won't be much of a stretch to justify why the project is relevant. Unless the new initiative is really a complete 180.
High level engineers should be looking ahead and predicting what projects will be needed based on technical weak spots or market trends.
If I see a staff engineer consistently trying to latch onto company initiatives and strategy goals to get funding for their pet project, I would like to fire them
Why not try to actually solve the issues, and spend the politics budget on making sure people noticed? Even if you failed on the politics thing you've at least done something useful