You are correct to an extent, but its a fallacy to assume the language and tooling have no impact on the culture or people it attracts. Go is very specifically not "elegant", it has a stdlib where npm has hundreds of dependencies which differ between projects. Errors in JS (Ruby, etc) can come from unexpected places, but the code can elegantly hide them. In Go they are in your face at all times -- but then they rarely surprise you. etc. Its a series of trade offs that are more than simple choices IMO, they target and attract different audiences. And to an extent many people will likely gel better with one than the other. Its only a piece of the puzzle to be sure and the people and company matter more, but I strongly disagree that languages / frameworks matter little. I think those with big differences (Node/Ruby vs Go) there's probably a substantial difference in "average" workplace culture.