Code Review as a Service
I&#x27;m a reviewer on PullRequest, and thought I&#x27;d share some perspective. Happy to answer any questions in comments.<p>Background - I&#x27;ve built and led engineering teams at multiple fast-growing startups. In doing so I&#x27;ve seen the incredible value PR&#x27;s can provide, but also the huge cost of them on small teams. I review on PullRequest part-time as I work full-time building a startup.<p>Many of the critics here are right. The PullRequest service won&#x27;t catch every bug. As reviewers on this service, we lack context* to fully understand the impact of every code change.<p>However, this can be a blessing in disguise. As an outsider, I bring an entirely different set of context to the project. I can see errors or improvements that teams have become blind to, I don&#x27;t have the pressure of shipping for X release, and I&#x27;ve often been not only where these teams are, but where these teams want to be in X months.<p>This is all done without using any man-hours on the client team - which is often a critically short resource.<p>Ultimately the proof is in the pudding, I raise comments on almost every single review I do, raising from best practice to architectural to security vulnerability, and the majority of the time teams take that feedback onboard.<p>Other QA:<p>Where are you located? I&#x27;m located in San Francisco.<p>Who approves PR&#x27;s?  I tend to consider my role to advise and sometimes mentor. I will give opinions, but it ultimately the client&#x27;s job to approve&#x2F;reject PR&#x27;s.<p>My code is great, I don’t need this!  Have you tried it? As an outsider, I catch peoples blind-spots. That said, PR is always looking for great reviewers to join the team!<p>* It&#x27;s worth noting, that between seeing the code, optionally having access to the full code base, and asking questions of developers - I develop a decent mental model of most projects.