[nazbot]

It's a problem for small teams and people with little experience with code reviews. The 'walking on egg shells' thing happens ALL the time.

I've never seen this get solved overnight. Your management really needs to sit down and explain their expectations around code reviews - that fixing things based on co-worker suggestions is a positive thing, that having negative comments won't affect their performance reviews, etc.

I also find that with people like that you really do need to let more things go. If it's not a critical bug or an actual problem with the code then let it slide. Some people just cannot take criticism (even constructive) and the bad blood you'll get by persisting with it will not help you.

I also tend to find these developers are not necessarily the strongest devs and often have other personality problems. This likely indicates that your company needs to focus a lot more on the hiring and culture.