I was a grunt developer at 'one of these places,' and my experience was in complete contrast to your description. I was never in any way required to 'supplicate' my superiors. My input was evaluated on content and how well I argued, not on my lack of seniority.

My colleagues were lively, extremely competent and collaborative. They were far from bland office drones who only got excited at March Madness brackets or whatever the stereotype is.

A lot of them definitely read HN, and that brings me to the most memorable frustration, which was the inability to respond to comments about what it was like to work at the company.