I'm sorry you had such a disheartening experience at Pivotal; it's uncommon — in general, Pivotal people tend to be very warm and kind, and not snobby at all.
When I joined Pivotal six (seven?) years ago, I assumed that I'd stay maybe two years, tops, but the people were nice, and that's what has kept me here.
Also, the comment you heard ("Oh I think we already know how [Database X] works") may have not intended to be snobby but rather a nod to one of the developers there: if the database company was InfluxDB, and the office you visited was the NYC office, then there's a good chance that they were referring to one of the Pivotal developers, John, who was one of the early developers of InfluxDB along with Paul Dix and Todd Persen. [1]
I'm sorry you had such a disheartening experience at Pivotal; it's uncommon — in general, Pivotal people tend to be very warm and kind, and not snobby at all.
When I joined Pivotal six (seven?) years ago, I assumed that I'd stay maybe two years, tops, but the people were nice, and that's what has kept me here.
Also, the comment you heard ("Oh I think we already know how [Database X] works") may have not intended to be snobby but rather a nod to one of the developers there: if the database company was InfluxDB, and the office you visited was the NYC office, then there's a good chance that they were referring to one of the Pivotal developers, John, who was one of the early developers of InfluxDB along with Paul Dix and Todd Persen. [1]
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[1] https://www.influxdata.com/blog/influxdb-1-0-ga-released-a-r...