This is a great question. and I have worked at multiple startups, and mega-corps. The only attribute I would look for is the engineering culture in the team or

This is a great question. and I have worked at multiple startups, and mega-corps. The only attribute I would look for is the engineering culture in the team or org you are joining. I found the best orgs to have a cultural tone set by engineer-turned managers who remain hands-on and value excellence in engineering. Majority of managers are average coders who have moved on to management. Such managers look down at engineers with disdain (or as code-monkeys) or worse they see themselves higher in the status hierarchy and impose themselves on the engineers or god-forbid, they see themselves as technically better and interfere in technical decisions. this leads to a poor engineering culture in the org as excellence in engineering is not even measured or appreciated granted, the cultural tone of a team or org is difficult to gauge from outside and during the interview process.