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Abstraction is the original sin of technology. It's essential to do anything and we have taught two generations to treat abstractions as real, but not what's beneath the ones they use nor the implications of this lie, and we wonder why no one can see the impact the lie has on their work and world.

Abstractions are fine as long as you never forget they're a lie and you know how to think across multiple layers. At a minimum, you need a good understanding two layers below and above your work and enough knowledge to know the territory and where to start debugging four layers down.

Interestingly, this metric — understanding two layers in depth and a couple more more generally — is the same one the US Army uses when talking about understanding the context of orders as part of the leadership process — understanding the commander's intent two levels up from you.

I guess an important question here is: Is the grandboss' goal, in fact, commensurate with your own? Is what he wants fundamentally to get rid of you or to expropriate more value for you with less compensation?