I think you're underestimating the power of an engineer to royally screw things up with excessive and inappropriate honesty!  I forget the relevant Dilbert cartoon ... :-)<p>In any case; if you ask, the worst they can do is lie and say "it's all good."  Then use the metadata surrounding their replies to the "most/least proud" questions to figure out if this sounds reasonable.  Are they proud of a sizeable chunk of functionality, or just the user avatar widget indexing? Do they seem reticent about either reply? Ask them "why's that?" to each reply.  Do they seem to have difficulty choosing their most/least-proud part?  Is that because there're too many options, or too few? :-)<p>Perhaps ask them (before the "codebase state" question) about something you /know/ isn't 100% in the company.  People complain about stuff they shouldn't, online: use the googles to your advantage and find out what things might be a good litmus test for their co-workers' honesty.<p>My 2 €-cents