It depends, I had my team in mind, where we truly enjoy working together and there are just a few of us. But you are right, large dev shops are often horrible places. If you want to hire everyone yourself you probably need some tech skills and ideally a network.

I once hired a dev shop with one manager and one employee, lol. I don't really know why, but I decided to give it a shot. So I gave them the absolute simplest task of creating a login screen. Could someone screw up a login screen for $50? The specs were clearly on PDF, with font weights and padding given.

My god, they really set the bar on not giving a shit. After several failed attempts to follow the specifications, I just gave them the $50 and a terrible review on Upwork. They responded with a terrible review as well.

There's nothing really preventing some charismatic stranger on the internet from claiming his team is not like the other teams. No offense, but some evidence is always helpful.

$50 on upwork is far from "hiring a dev shop"