Posted by ColinWright 15 hours ago
The way to confirm that code does not have bugs is testing. So the reviewer is not looking at the code saying "this will work", they're looking at the code saying "I understand how this works, it makes sense."
Evidence that the code is safe is something that also should be provided in the PR, but it is not the main code. It is ideally test automation that is just as understandable as the feature code, but failing that ad-hoc test evidence or a specific step-by-step plan with evidence of execution is good too.
Bad programmers make the simplest things really complicated.
Who is getting called at 2 AM when something breaks? Not the junior.
Where I work, a senior would be reprimanded for such behavior. A key metric to their success is how well they can transfer knowledge and teach others, and their peers' feedback is used to determine this.
The senior that "punches down" does not go far in this case.