It isn't just one though. Every linter I've used has warned about that.

Probably because PEP 8 says

> Imports are always put at the top of the file, just after any module comments and docstrings, and before module globals and constants

Ruff doesn't do this, and in fact even lets you specify modules that _must_ not be imported at the top level (banned-module-level-imports = [...])

I banished the worst/heaviest libraries to this list at my workplace and it's been really helpful at keeping startup times from regressing.