My father (and many others like him) has been programming in C at a prominent SV company for the past 15 years (OK, it's based in the South Bay). I know many people in SF doing similar jobs, just coding away in Java or C++. Those people come to work, do their work, then go home. They don't tweet, or write Medium posts, or have dark green GitHub activity profiles. They don't work with you, so they don't talk to you. You aren't aware they exist. However, these people build many of the systems that make our day-to-day lives possible.
> I'm not denying either of these facts but it doesn't stop the small town engineers from existing.
I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying that there just aren't that many of them.