
Ask HN: How can non-engineers gauge the quality of the engineering team? - jimkri
Are there things for people to look at when they are joining a company to identify that the engineering team is not as strong as a company is saying?
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mping
If the engineers have a track record/pedigree of previous employment (eg
kernel maintainer, ex googler, etc), it can be used as a proxy. Same for open
source contributions.

Good scores on the Joel test normally correlate with a mature engineering team
IMHO ([https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-
test-12-s...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-
test-12-steps-to-better-code/)). The reverse may not be true. Just asked the
team how they score on the Joel test.

Also, if the churn is high something is probably bad. Ask around why the last
developers quit.

Bear in mind it's very hard to gauge from the outside, even for an engineer.

