Messy codebase is one thing, but messed up build/configuration system is much worse. I don't ask to see it, but I've found it effective to ask a simple questio

Messy codebase is one thing, but messed up build/configuration system is much worse. I don't ask to see it, but I've found it effective to ask a simple question: "So, How's your build system?". The engineers at an effective company where everything is in order, will just have this puzzled look on their face and say "it's fine", not really understand just how terrible things could be. However, for those companies that have huge problems with their stack, the kind of places where builds and configurations break on a regular basis, the kinds of places where you spend half your work hours fighting against configurations and setups, well those interviewers start having steam come out of their ears. After asking this, One interviewer admitted their build system was a hot mess.