Attempting to reverse engineer code review

Accidentally in Code · Oct 13, 2026

I keep hearing complaints about code review. About volume, about quality, about trying to take responsibility for code produced by colleagues who have abdicated their responsibility for thinking and are uncritically hitting enter.

But how much of that is just grumpiness? Frustration? “AI slop” is the new “I didn’t like it.” Code review was always something I paid attention to as a manager, because when there was conflict on a team, it was the place most likely to show up. Code review is subjective work presented with the illusion of objectivity; everything unsaid…