Non-stop VC funding and explosive growth usually lead to this. Eventually your managers aspirations get the best of them and they hire middle managers and those people hire program managers and the feedback loop continues. This excludes the "friends" I mean cough cough "colleagues" that get hired into newly created positions of power. Then you have reorgs which is a whole separate issue.

I don't think there is anyway way to stop this cycle, I've seen it play out too many times. The only way to sort of delay it is to ensure the C-levels are lined with at least one technical ex-SE type that'll call out BS when they see it.