Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
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Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
1–10 of 81 posts
Re: Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
#2Most code reviews I've participated in have devolved into the senior/loudest person making sure that people know who they are and what everyone's place in the hierarchy is.
Even in reviews where the reviewee had some amazing code that was kind of groundbreaking in one area, still have to find something to gripe about because I have 20 years on this kid. This seems to be quite common in science/engineering, not just in code reviews.
I wish I could find that company where nobody gives a shit about their place in the hierarchy and everyone isn't constantly trying to gun for other people's jobs to make their linkedin profiles look more impressive. It's been a looooong time now, still searching.
Re: Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
#3Most code reviews I've participated in have devolved into the senior/loudest person making sure that people know who they are and what everyone's place in the hierarchy is. Even in reviews where the reviewee had some amazing code that was kind of groundbreaking in one area, still have to find something to gripe about because I have 20 years on this kid. This seems to be quite common in science/engineering, not just i…
If you're in NYC or SF apply to foursquare. We're not perfect, but we have a nice culture that is engineer driven and is very egalitarian.
Re: Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
#4How do you all make sure the code review requests get load balanced across the team, as opposed to 2-3 people getting all the PR requests?
Re: Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
#5How do you all make sure the code review requests get load balanced across the team, as opposed to 2-3 people getting all the PR requests?
Not everyone is the right person for a specific code review. Even on small teams someone may be more of a subject matter expert in one facet of your system or code. Therefore load balancing isn’t really the right way to look at it. The idea should be to seek feedback inclusively and welcomed from all teammates. As a submitter your job is to make sure you get the right feedback if there is someone more knowledgeable of a topic. This is why standup is a good place to discuss a code review where you can identify need for time and also identify right people.
Re: Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
#6Most code reviews I've participated in have devolved into the senior/loudest person making sure that people know who they are and what everyone's place in the hierarchy is. Even in reviews where the reviewee had some amazing code that was kind of groundbreaking in one area, still have to find something to gripe about because I have 20 years on this kid. This seems to be quite common in science/engineering, not just i…
My current company doesn’t have that problem (at least in my team) but I’m sure some teams do. I think this is everywhere and depends on team culture.
Re: Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
#7How do you all make sure the code review requests get load balanced across the team, as opposed to 2-3 people getting all the PR requests?
Not everyone is the right person for a specific code review. Even on small teams someone may be more of a subject matter expert in one facet of your system or code. Therefore load balancing isn’t really the right way to look at it. The idea should be to seek feedback inclusively and welcomed from all teammates. As a submitter your job is to make sure you get the right feedback if there is someone more knowledgeable o…
Agreed it shouldn’t be an even distribution of review requests across the board. That said, if a few people are getting all the reviews, it’s difficult for them to make progress on their project work, and for other engineers to learn code review best practices and get familiar with the codebase.
Re: Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
#8Most code reviews I've participated in have devolved into the senior/loudest person making sure that people know who they are and what everyone's place in the hierarchy is. Even in reviews where the reviewee had some amazing code that was kind of groundbreaking in one area, still have to find something to gripe about because I have 20 years on this kid. This seems to be quite common in science/engineering, not just i…
> I wish I could find that company where nobody gives a shit about their place in the hierarchy and everyone isn't constantly trying to gun for other people's jobs to make their linkedin profiles look more impressive. It's been a looooong time now, still searching.
They definitely exist (I work at such a place) so I wish you the best of luck in your search!
Re: Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
#9Most code reviews I've participated in have devolved into the senior/loudest person making sure that people know who they are and what everyone's place in the hierarchy is. Even in reviews where the reviewee had some amazing code that was kind of groundbreaking in one area, still have to find something to gripe about because I have 20 years on this kid. This seems to be quite common in science/engineering, not just i…
Yes. There shouldn't be any reviewee except the code itself. But this is hard to get right.
One of the questions I try to ask myself with any comment I write as a reviewer: "Would I accept this comment?".
Re: Building an Inclusive Code Review Culture
#10How do you all make sure the code review requests get load balanced across the team, as opposed to 2-3 people getting all the PR requests?
Author here, that’s a great question! We approach this by ensuring that there are always multiple people that can review a given codebase or service. In practice what this looks like is we have teams that own our different services. Rather than just assign a random person from that team if you’re making a PR for one of their services, we utilize what we call “open” slack channels, where any one can ask questions of the team. So you’ll go to the teams’s slack and ask for someone to review. We recommend @ mentioning the people who’ve most recently made significant changes to the code you’re working in as they’re most likely to be the best reviewers. But by sharing the responsibility across each team, that ensures there’s no piece of code that only one person across the whole engineering organization is qualified to review. For projects within a team, there will generally be one or two dedicated reviewers and we utilize stand ups to check in and make sure no one is overloaded with reviews. And since the whole team has familiarity with the project, it’s easy to swap out a reviewer if someone is overwhelmed or on vacation.