After I finished writing yesterday's email where I said you need both top-down and bottom-up approaches, I realised one important caveat.
What if you have neither approaches at your disposal?
What if management is hell-bent on not listening to your whining about accessibility? And what if every time you bring that up with your devs and designers, they start rolling their eyes and yawning?
Then, my friend, you're kind of screwed, aren't you?
To the people above you, you're a "blocker" who keeps bringing up expensive problems. And to the people next to you, you're the "hall monitor" muddying up their Jira boards. You have no mandate from the top and no momentum from the bottom.
So, do you just pack your bags and find a team that actually gives a damn?
Maybe.
But before you update your resume, maybe there's a third way. It's not elegant, it'll take time and it'll stress you out. It might also work.
If they won't listen to "accessibility" because it sounds like a chore, stop using the word.
Don't tell anyone you're fixing WCAG 2.2 compliance. Tell them you're working on reducing the number of support tickets. Instead of telling the devs they need to learn ARIA, tell them you'll help them clean up some technical debt. And if the designers are picky about the colours, tell them the brand looks washed out on mobile screens outside where the sun shines.
If you're just waiting for the culture to change, you'll be waiting a damn long time. Instead, try to become the catalyst for that change.
At the end of the day, a button that works for a screen reader is a button that works. They don't have to care why it works.
As long as you do.