That's been my experience as someone who tends to ask them regularly. I don't have a lot of hubris when it comes down to it, so I'll almost always ask. Especially acronyms or industry/insider business terms... I'll usually do a quick search in a browser, but if the results don't make sense, will simply ask.

Asking stupid questions almost goes hands in glove with "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission." A lot of times, you're better off just doing something. Asking a simple question or making something happen saves a lot of grief more often than not. Understanding is important.

My cousin, when he got his first job, he managed to wipe the database clean on his first day at work. (classic, I know)

The seniors were very understanding, and more importantly it raised important questions about backups, dev vs prod pipelines, etc.

But you can bet my cousin was super embarrassed by it, and saving face was a big part of it.

Completely agree with this. I got to work closely with an IBM fellow one summer and I was impressed by his willingness to ask "dumb questions" in meetings. Sometimes he was just out of the loop but more often he was just questioning some of the assumptions that others in the room had left unquestioned.

100% agree and more credit if I could give it!

Even as a lead I ask the dumb question when no one else does just because when i can see the look in people faces or realize no one is chiming in the dumb question is needed to ensure everyone drives the point home. I've never been met with any sort of looking down upon nor do i discourage any of my staff - quite the opposite - I champion them for being willing to speak up.

Culture varies.

I am bit more senior nowadays.

Whenever I don’t understand something I say something like: "Uh, I’m probably the only one here, but I don’t get it…"

Company culture. Some companies I worked for would fire you for questioning decisions. Others, welcomed criticism. You don’t really know which environment you’re in until someone says something. Are you going to take the risk and be the first?

Think of highly competitive environments where looking foolish can be weaponised against you. They definitely exist here (my experience in UK and Australia)

There are a lot of bad places to work, and those are the types of places that do things like replace junior devs with AI.

The place I work at is in the middle of a new CEO’s process of breaking the company. The company can’t go out of business, but we’ll set stuff on fire for another 12-18 months.

I don't think that's the same. I spitball crazy ideas, but my core knowledge/expertise is sound, and I try not to talk out of my ass. (Or I am upfront when I'm outside my area of expertise. I think it's important to call that out once your word starts carrying some weight.)

A product manager can definitely say things that would make me lose a bit of respect for a fellow senior engineer.

I can also see how juniors have more leeway to weigh in on things they absolutely don't understand. Crazy ideas and constructive criticism is welcome from all corners, but at some level I also start expecting some more basic competence.

Yup, my SR Director boss often says "I'm an idiot. Can you tell me what 'X' means when most of us probably wanted to know but were too afraid to ask

I have worked at a place where people were routinely criticized for asking basic questions on a big all-dev DL (which was archived and searchable, so they actually added to a growing record). The preferred solution was to ask a co-worker on the same team. People were answered a lot of questions were also criticized for being helpful. In neither case was the criticism that much from devs but from managers and given in boss feedback directly to people. Also it had a problem with spreading a good culture and common technical vision to new people, for some reason ( /s )