[omoikane]

I can understand motivation to read some code samples from prospective employers, but not for the examples that the OP mentioned.

There are some terrible software patterns that someone might not want to work with, but such things can be found in every team of every company. My experience is that good engineers will gradually come to own whatever legacy they have inherited and either clean those up or rewrite them until they are satisfied. So for the purpose of not wanting to work with tech debt, asking to see the codebase seems futile.

But a codebase is also a reflection of culture, and it's reasonable to want to understand what culture you will be getting into. For example, if every other code comment contains a juvenile joke and that's the sort of thing that will offend you, that might not be a place you want to work. Cleaning up code is much easier than cleaning up culture.