To be fair, I think it's both. If the "sausage making" is grotesque, even an exceptional marketer would struggle :) A coder who understands what public signals

To be fair, I think it's both. If the "sausage making" is grotesque, even an exceptional marketer would struggle :) A coder who understands what public signals are valuable can give a marketer something to work with. That might include "code quality" but it's probably more than that. Visible activity, responsive processes, valuable features, etc. Just guessing, though.