Or replace the $80+ "tech" climbing pants or selvedge jeans, expensive trail runners or toe shoes or whatever, tech company t-shirt, and American Giant (on the cheap end, it goes up from there) hoodie with: $25 Lee jeans or Target cargo pants, cheap big box store sneakers or cheap work boots—not, say, Redwing Heritage or you'll accidentally start fitting in with the hipster-tech variant of tech fashion, because they're kinda impractical and expensive-for-their-features compared to other work boot options, and yes of course I own some—a Nascar shirt and a wal-mart hoodie that's missing its plastic aglets because it's been washed once.

You can definitely dress in a way that doesn't look that much "lower" to an outsider but looks very wrong, and, gasp, poor to someone in-tune with tech worker fashion. So it's not just dressing too nice that does it, and hell, for that matter you can spend about as much as the cost of an on-sale Brooks Brothers suit buying a "tech shabby" outfit[0], with results that will definitely be appreciated by many your fellow tech workers, or simply overlooked by others in a way that Red-State-Working-Class or suit-and-a-tie won't.

[0] The aforementioned Red Wing Heritage boots are north of $300 for most models, full retail, and check out Arc'teryx and such for how expensive trail shoes can get ($150+, and they're not the most expensive brand), but even something like Danners are pretty pricey compared to what normal people buy for shoes; dropping $200 on a hoodie and rain layer is easy (again, go for expedition-clothing sorts of products to run up the price tag but also the tech worker cred—$300 just for a paper-thin rain jacket isn't even the top of the range); $80 merino wool hiking shirt ("I just love how it keeps me dry, but also I love talking about merino wool with other people who know how expensive it is"); and shit, jeans, sky's the limit, you can hit $200 on those while still just "buying more quality" and not even in just-paying-for-the-label territory yet.

When first starting out I wore a suit to a job interview (not a tech company, but a Fortune 100 where you could literally wear a bikini to work (man or woman) and nobody would say anything). After I was hired they pulled me aside and told me to never do that again.

One of the first companies I worked at, the motto of the boss was - if they have a suit they're there to get you

At first reading this comment felt like it was going to a story of a guy going to work in a bikini - but alas.

I really want to know what this company is now

As a counter example one of the best developers I've worked with wore a business suit/formal clothes regularly. But he was in his 40s and it felt appropriate with his demeanor - it didn't feel out of place at all despite the office being rather casual (I remember more than a few people wearing sweatpants around the office since they would cycle/run to work)

Oh, there are certainly exceptions to this, Gary Bernhardt (whom I highly respect for giving excellent talks) wears exactly the attire I'm describing.

But we all have implicit biases, and it wouldn't be my gut feeling to trust a person who does not present as 'one of my group' like this.. even though I'm aware of the bias.

When I worked in Windows I always loved seeing Raymond Chen in his suit amid a sea of t-shirts and flip-flops.