I never really understood what's appealing about participating in a community with gazillions of users where any attempt to have a conversation is buried under thousands of replies. Not even talking about the amount of trolling or aggressive commenters.

I think smaller places suit me better, and I am grateful that smaller instances like this one have emerged as a result of the latest happenings with Reddit.

This also happens in the Midsize Companies I have worked for, and also in the Small Companies where management was not technical or had no interest in technical topics.

I think key factors are:

• Distance with managers. More is worse.
• Interest/knowledge they have in technical endeavors. Less is worse.
• Layers of management. More is worse.

That said, and whereas the advice might be effective, it also sucks to not be true to your own values. I would suggest to try to be communicative, but maybe don't become the asshole we all hate. And try to know more about the company on this regard while interviewing. Difficult, true, but include this in the list of factors when deciding which companies to join.