Got told my code reviews were too nice, changed everything

My senior dev told me I wasn't being critical enough after I approved a PR with a typo in the variable name. I started leaving at least one actual improvement suggestion per review, even if the code worked fine. Anyone else have to adjust how they give feedback after someone called them out?

2 comments

2 Comments

oscarh166d agoOG Member

Actually, being too critical can backfire just as badly as being too soft. If you start hunting for things to critique just to hit a quota, you risk wasting everyone's time on nitpicking that doesn't improve the code. A seasoned team trusts each other's basic judgment, so approving something that works isn't a weakness, it's efficiency.

wendy_wilson6d ago

Wait, isn't that basically what I've been arguing against though? But honestly, reading your take just made me realize I was probably overthinking it and being too hard on people when a simple "looks good" would've been fine.