[BugsJustFindMe]

You'd think so, but often the blocking reviewer is an entire team, including people who just aren't careful at all or who don't understand the downstream consequences of their actions, and not just the one person who has strong vision and cares about the process, because the one person is also a bottleneck.

Requiring reviewers isn't sufficient. It needs to require a cohesive review strategy that adheres to a long term product vision for the software component in question. And my experience, though not at the two companies you mentioned, is that it doesn't happen and you instead get a lot of thoughtless "yup, looks like code" approvals.

[closeparen]

I know a team like this. They delegate relatively junior members to take inbound design consultations from other teams. They string you along for months with a tentative alignment. Then finally the real decision-maker reviews your proposal, and he wants a total do-over. So you've got 6+ months with nothing to show. Just incredibly antisocial behavior that has caused hundreds of wasted engineer-months and gotten some very talented engineers I know very nearly fired.

Upholding a strong vision is fine. But if you want to be a blocker, you've also got to be quick. The alternative is a bureaucratic death spiral.

[bombela]

I concur. Everything you said. Looks like code, approved. I also had a short stint at one of the mentioned company. This is not real code ownership with accountability. Accountability theater.