[simmschi]

Have you tried the code owners feature (assuming you're on Github).

IMO a good approach is to have the actual code owners (i.e. the team responsible for a specific service or library) review the PR. If they think a shallow LGTM review of 3k LOC is enough, they can also deal with the bugs :-)

If you don't have specific ownership in your code base I'd start there.

[donatj]

This is all within a relatively small single team.

As I said however, I could require review from specific people I know review but they're already at their wits end.

Also having to explain why certain devs are required without it smelling like some sort of favoritism seems fraught.

[Aeolun]

Normally you promote those people to ‘senior’ and then say that a review by at least one senior is required?