Code review quality depended on which senior was on duty. That was the bug.

Description and use

<p>On a team shipping twenty-plus PRs a day, we had a review quality lottery. When the security-minded senior caught your PR, you got a rigorous review. When it landed on a Friday afternoon with the wrong reviewer assigned, "LGTM" arrived in nine minutes and the naming inconsistency, the N+1 query, and the missing input validation all sailed to main. Same team, same rules, wildly different review — because the rules lived in people's heads and the heads took turns.</p> <h2> 30-second takeaway </h2> <ul> <li> <strong>3.7×</strong> more security findings caught before merge (consistent baseline,

Problem

<p>On a team shipping twenty-plus PRs a day, we had a review quality lottery. When the security-minded senior caught your PR, you got a rigorous review. When it landed on a Friday afternoon with the wrong reviewer assigned, "LGTM" arrived in nine minutes and the naming inconsistency, the N+1 query, and the missing input validation all sailed to main. Same team, same rules, wildly different review — because the rules lived in people's heads and the heads took turns.</p> <h2> 30-second takeaway </h2> <ul> <li> <strong>3.7×</strong> more security findings caught before merge (consistent baseline,

Outcome

<p>On a team shipping twenty-plus PRs a day, we had a review quality lottery. When the security-minded senior caught your PR, you got a rigorous review. When it landed on a Friday afternoon with the wrong reviewer assigned, "LGTM" arrived in nine minutes and the naming inconsistency, the N+1 query, and the missing input validation all sailed to main. Same team, same rules, wildly different review — because the rules lived in people's heads and the heads took turns.</p> <h2> 30-second takeaway </h2> <ul> <li> <strong>3.7×</strong> more security findings caught before merge (consistent baseline,

Evidence

Code review quality depended on which senior was on duty. That was the bug.

Source