I used to manage engineers at another large tech company and this was a big problem. There was nowhere near enough big projects to get everyone the evidence they needed for promotions.
As a result we ended up doing two things a lot:
1) over-engineering a feature that should be simple into something with architectural significance (e.g. a new set of services that could have just been a feature in an existing service)
2) de-prioritizing important things that were small in order to ensure everyone had a big project every quarter.
We ended up having to hire contractors to work on the small stuff because it was piling up and causing problems.
As a result we ended up doing two things a lot:
1) over-engineering a feature that should be simple into something with architectural significance (e.g. a new set of services that could have just been a feature in an existing service)
2) de-prioritizing important things that were small in order to ensure everyone had a big project every quarter.
We ended up having to hire contractors to work on the small stuff because it was piling up and causing problems.