Got a senior dev at work.

The guy is good at his job, no doubt, but his insecurity drives me up the wall.

- Constantly double checks work done by non-seniors.
- Setup a policy where only seniors can code review.
- Tells non-seniors not to give out advice as they don't know what they're talking about.
- Edits pull requests for you.
- Demands unobtainable quality for insignificant pieces of work.
- Patronising teams messages on the regular.

We're all just trying to get work done and he's always acting like we haven't got enough stripes on the badge.

I've arguably been on both sides of this situation. Without extra details it's hard to tell whether his critiques are justified or just nitpicks (or probs a mix of both)

Discerning perfect from good enough IS an issue for perfectionists. If his quality standards delay product deadlines or cause frustration in the team he should definitely be focused more on the product and stakeholders than the underlying code.

As a manager, this is the conversation I have with seniors like that:

- We expect our junior devs to review code . We expect them to occasionally give bad advice. We expect them to make mistakes, and learn how to fix their own mistakes. As a senior dev, I expect you can teach juniors how to review code properly. I expect you’ll encourage them to understand their scope of competence and how to provide quality advice backed with facts. I expect you to create the guardrails that allow them to make mistakes safely, including updating our coding style guide and fixing the code linter. The senior who can be the best teacher is likely going to get the principle dev promotion when it comes available .

As a mid dev Ive been on both sides because in my last workplace we had juniors who were submitting very shitty code and mids/seniors have approval rights so have to review constantly. But I was being constructive and they started getting better.

A senior joins the company and raises his first simple MR. Ive been in the company for 8 months at that point and I knew the domain so I left some comments of his MR and approved it. Also other senior dev approved it.

Senior guy goes on slack and asks for someone more senior to also check his MR. Basically disregarding my feedback lol. MR ended up being merged anyways

Left the company, the senior snowflake attempted adding me to linkedin and facebook, rejected and blocked him lol.

Let me correct you, the guy is not good at his job.

If he does these things, he cannot call himself a senior dev.

@masterwayne as a manager, it’s also my job to sit down with the junior dev and have the other side of that conversation - get good or get gone.

How can non-seniors learn if they're not allowed to review code coming _from_ the seniors (in PRs)?

@ChatGPT answer questions (hope this works)

@pandasama
Yes, I am here to answer your questions!

This senior dev could spank you or lick your necks, guys, it's not that bad.

@devphobe Many things in motion in a team and the teams around the teams and then some.

So, humans are difficult in this aspect and I know for a fact that corporate culture is vastly different in different areas of the world. There is also a different notion of what is good enough. And the list goes on. What is acceptable somewhere is, well, you get it…

I think that the principal goal for any leadership is to make an inclusive, non-toxic and (somewhat) productive environment to work within. Inclusive and positive will often lead to longer employment periods which is important since, well, what we do is a little bit complex and fluent. It can’t be grasped really. Tech is moving. Even we don’t understand it. Imagine how the ”others” see it. Juniors, for example.

I think we should aim for the 💫s.

Be that guy! Be that gal! Reach out. Pick up the phone! SHOW-AND-TELL!

Management must be very vigilant to avoid teams not learning/teaching. It’s death!

Lol if you don’t let non seniors give advice how would you ever know if someone is ready to be a senior