I'm a VPE at a small-ish org (30 devs or so, currently), and I regularly skim through commit history and keep an eye on various technical chat (we're fully remote, so there's lots of chat). I don't think I spend more than 15 mins per week looking at git history, but that's very informative -- it is not enough to make robust decisions but it is good enough to spot issues once in a while. (I have written my fair share of code in the past, so that helps.) So it's like going to a book shop, reading two pages from a book and deciding whether I like the style or not.