I don't know too much about Google, but I can talk about other companies.
Everyone recruits grunt devs like that. That's what every job in Silicon Valley is. It's just that some companies and teams want you to spin it like you're some amazing lone wolf 100x genius while you're scraping dogshit off the bottom of the company's shoes.
A big part of it is that the executives decide what's making money for the company, and they'll focus on that. If you're scraping turds on the "rockstar" team in the "rockstar" org, you'll get showered with bonus money and RSUs. If you're scraping turds on a product that none of the VPs care about, you'll probably get screwed over. Some of the people in the non-"ninja"/"wizard"/"rockstar" orgs will do OK because they look like indispensable geniuses, and I think that's what a lot of this sentiment comes from.
