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I admit, I don't know to manage one situation, I have doubts about the best approach with the pull requests with a particular reviewer.. I would appreciate all the possible feedback to understand what I should do.

I have large discussion in some pull requests with a particular person (my manager) and sincerely, I want to work better and avoid frictions. Also, I am "senior" in the company, I suppose they expect my "expertise". But I have the strong feeling that he / she has a specific idea about how to develop some feature and all the discussions we've had in the PR is about how to implement his/her idea and I have major issues to discuss and find a shared /close decision...I spend a lot of days "discussing" to explain why I do the things in some way and it provides me a lot of delays. In the end, he doesn't like my ideas or I can not convince him and the result is the same, his opinion.

  • How I could manage this situation if I don't feel that it is a good approach some of the changes?

  • How can I improve myself from this situation?

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  • It is funny xD, I come from there, and they told me that this issue is more for workspace. I think I should split it, but I don't have clear how.
    – mcduty111
    Mar 11, 2021 at 14:33
  • Yeah, half the questions are certainly Workplace questions. I will attempt to answer, but I will refrain from commenting on the Code Review stuff.
    – Gregory Currie
    Mar 11, 2021 at 14:34
  • I can split all the parts that you think, they are not providing value and I will create issue about code review.
    – mcduty111
    Mar 11, 2021 at 14:36
  • Can you break the work down into smaller chunks? Or perhaps discuss as you go so you are not having to do as much rework?
    – DaveG
    Mar 11, 2021 at 14:48
  • I avoided the stuff about KISS/SOLID. I have to be honest, I really don't believe those principals are always useful. It's really context specific. You're really likely to get... less nuanced opinions here in Workplace. There is certainly a useful question in there suitable for Software Engineering SE, around how to find balance with KISS, and when it's OK to invalidate SOLID etc.
    – Gregory Currie
    Mar 11, 2021 at 14:50

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How I could manage this situation if I don't feel that it is a good approach some of the changes?

The problem is it's not your software. It's "theirs" so they can request that you do anything you want. Of course, it's not a good idea to disagree with every thing that you request, but if you feel strongly about something, you should definitely bring it up. Try to explain it from a standpoint of how it will help the business. For example, "I do not believe we should be coding this way because it makes adding features harder in the future. Doing it this way will allow for new features to be added more easily." Is a fairly good argument and something your boss may consider. He/she may ask, "How long will it take you to get that up and running?" And you could say, "Well it's going to take about 3 weeks of development but the benefits down the road I think far outweighs the slight delay in release." And your boss may say, "Sorry, we can't do that. We need this out now so get it done the way I said." And all you can say is, "Okay I will do that but wanted to share my thoughts."

How can I improve myself from this situation?

Best way is to simply voice your opinions but understand ultimately, it is your manager's and stakeholder's call on what gets added.

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Speaking generally, sometimes managers are aware of factors outside your control that influence their decision making process. They also have experienced (and suffered) different scenarios to you. They may have different ideas about what the most important factors are etc.

This type of unbalance causes friction that completely fine, provide that as time goes by, you and your manager converge on a shared understanding. It is generally fine to ask your boss how they arrived at a conclusion, provided you do it with an inquisitive tone and not an argumentative one.

And maybe you will still disagree, but at least you'll have an understanding about what they base their decisions on, so in the future, your work will be more likely to be aligned with what they expect.

At the day, remember that they are the boss. But also remember that you are a senior. You are both capable of working as adults to do what you can to arrive at smoother workflows.

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At the end of the day you don't own the company and you don't own the code. You can make your case all day long but if, at the end of the day, your words fall on deaf ears then your options are:

  • Suck it up and do what you're told
  • Leave and find another company that might be more receptive to your input
  • Do it your way, in defiance of your manager, and risk being fired if you're caught (not an option I'd recommend)

If you want total control over the code you're writing then start an open source project or your own company.

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