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Code Review as Mentorship

engineeringmentorshippractices

Every code review is a teaching moment. The best feedback doesn't just fix code—it levels up the author.

I've reviewed thousands of pull requests over the years. The reviews I'm most proud of aren't the ones where I caught bugs. They're the ones where I helped someone see a problem differently.

The Shift in Mindset

Stop asking "what's wrong with this code?" Start asking "what can this person learn from this review?"

Before: "This should use a Map instead of an object."

After: "Maps are great here because we're using non-string keys. They also have better performance for frequent additions/deletions. Here's a quick example..."

Questions Over Commands

Instead of telling someone what to change, ask questions that lead them there:

  • "What happens if this input is null?"
  • "How would we test this edge case?"
  • "Have you considered what happens at scale?"

The goal isn't to show what you know. It's to help them discover what they need to learn.