You Don T Have To Be Competitive To Succeed In Tech

You don't have to be competitive to succeed in tech.

I've seen engineers treat code reviews like a sport. Find the flaw. Point out the mistake. Show everyone you caught it.

"Why didn't you use a constant here?" "This could be a one-liner." "I would have done this differently."

It might feel productive or look like high standards. But what it actually does is make people defensive. They stop asking for feedback early or hide work until it's "ready." They dread submitting PRs.

Now compare that to a collaborative review:

"I see what you're going for here. Have you considered X? It might handle the edge case we hit last sprint." "This is solid. One thought, if we extract this into a helper, we could reuse it in the billing service too."

Same code, same issues addressed, but now the author learns something instead of feeling attacked. The team builds shared understanding instead of resentment.

The engineers who go the furthest aren't the ones who prove they're the smartest in the room. They're the ones who make the whole team better.

Competition might win a code review but collaboration wins careers.

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