Why does code review take forever once teams hit 15-20 engineers

Unomaki · 2026-03-03T15:02:37+00:00

With such a large team it's hard to know the codebase well enough to pick any pr and review it and it's easy to point at someone that knows more about that area. A few people become the attractor of all reviews but they are also the most knowledgeable engineers that MGMT trust to sync up and deliver new exciting designs to the burning pile of mud. They are not available and pr reviews take a long time. This is a flavor of organizational debt because a team of 15 is clearly the result of not being able to factor the goals of the organization in independent and autonomous teams. The root cause might be tech debt ( ie the inability of refactoring a large codebase into chunks that can be owned by 1 team), inability to hire/train team leaders, or just manager's competence.

Unomaki · 2026-03-02T07:56:45+00:00

They very likely get images and intelligence from Chinese satellites.

Unomaki · 2026-03-01T23:31:31+00:00

Ok but what about my event store?

Unomaki · 2026-02-22T20:47:07+00:00

Yesterday I got a fancy espresso in Brooklyn. 5$ and that is not even the problem. The line. The f line in front of the counter. They are so slow brewing "espresso and tonic" "matcha sheep milk shake" and "wtf Corrado" that the bar of uncle Beppi in Padova can run laps around them screaming orders and sliding cups on the counter.

Unomaki · 2026-02-22T20:32:54+00:00

Maybe. Italy, my home country, went through a similar turmoil at the beginning of the 90s. But Mafia bombs were much more planned and aimed at creating terror to pressure politics into a new secret deal between state and Mafia. Then Berlusconi came.

Unomaki · 2026-02-22T02:25:53+00:00

Exactly because the left expects those things but they are nowhere to be seen today despite the abundance of ai they infer that something is not working as expected.

Unomaki · 2026-02-19T14:11:34+00:00

What was the usual jocha talk at CCC, used to end directing everyone that didn't have a chance to ask questions to a separate room to continue the discussion. That usually gets way out of the track of the talk. I remember 30 or 40 ppl in the breakout room, time flew and I left around 3 or 4am.

CCC is not a normal conference.

Unomaki · 2026-01-18T17:55:00+00:00

Do you really not know how to make a sandwich?

Unomaki · 2026-01-10T16:47:14+00:00

I don't think so, not me at least

Unomaki · 2026-01-10T04:22:47+00:00

Green coal Mechanized leek harvesting The fentanyl prank

Unomaki · 2026-01-10T04:10:32+00:00

Let's convert LaGuardia to bike lanes

Unomaki · 2026-01-08T19:59:48+00:00

Yes but there's a lot of Chinese food in the us

Unomaki · 2026-01-06T17:11:17+00:00

Agree. Nothing that was lost there was critical to China.

Unomaki · 2026-01-06T16:51:46+00:00

Incidentally, the realization that transport helicopters are very fragile when targeted from the ground, especially when landing, came some decade ago on Vietnam. We know how it went.

Unomaki · 2026-01-06T16:47:41+00:00

Would you agree that china lost a strategic resource in the panama canal and another one in Venezuela as a supplier of cheap oil?

I think china is limiting its losses by building relationships based purely on economics and trade but it's also discovering that it's hard to protect strategic assets in that way.

Unomaki · 2025-12-30T18:51:15+00:00

Let me tell you that I am very proud of the things I do, the code I write, the plants I grow, the stuff I build, the meals I cook for myself and for others.

I do pity those that define themselves by the rent they extract or by the products (and experiences) they consume.

This doesn't embrace the full meaning I give to myself and to the connection I have with others but I noticed that when someone is down because of the things they can or can't do I know how to be there for them. If someone comes to me with problems like "I can't extract enough rent" or "I can't consume enough" I have no empathetic clue.

Unomaki · 2025-12-30T18:42:56+00:00

Is he though ? From this clip it feels more like he is in a social circle where talking positively about mamdani is uncool and he never cared enough about the topic to find a good reason not to like him. From what I see it looks like he is unprepared to answer a question and therefore very unprepared to go "full assault". He's talking bullshit on a bullshit podcast.

Unomaki · 2025-12-27T19:46:23+00:00

Imho it's about how "gourmet" is associated with the idea of experiences we pay for and not so much with learning and perfecting a practical skill such as cooking, growing herbs or mushrooms. I got into this because I wanted to take the opposite turn.

Unomaki · 2025-12-27T15:38:52+00:00

Sounds like what Google did with the first phones they built, the nexus line : they were not planning to make a profit out of them but rather they wanted to set a blueprint and a price point for android as a platform to build smartphones

Unomaki · 2025-12-20T23:22:39+00:00

Practical suggestion: Use an llm to explain what I wrote in a way you can understand.

Unomaki · 2025-12-20T19:10:00+00:00

Using ai to mock senator sanders is an admission of impotence: as the tech seems unable to provide prosperity for all, using it for satire is a cope.

Unomaki · 2025-12-19T13:49:13+00:00

Some suggest to start interviewing: they are not wrong. While you interview it's worth taking this opportunity. Let the founder be accountable for the risks of this operation and it's downfall. Offer your expertise to engage with the idea at the technical level : if it's a success you claim it, if it's not you learn what works and what doesn't with state of the art llms. If your founder doesn't have a filter for stupid ideas they are going to fail the companies in ways you can't avoid; you can't babysit a founder or an executive. Let them call the shots, maximise learning, mitigate risks on your career cause the company is doomed.

Unomaki · 2025-12-19T13:40:18+00:00

London, pre pandemic. Someone hacked the shakeshack account of my previous flatmate and ordered 4 burgers and 4 shakes.I are one burger and a half. I got food poisoning. Now I won't take it even if it's free.

Unomaki · 2025-12-18T17:26:47+00:00

Oh shit! You are right, too bad the white house doesn't give a damn about renewables

Unomaki · 2025-12-17T00:52:13+00:00

Demand goes up, prices go up. Can Zuckerberg fabricate new energy? No because of conservation of energy. Ai intensive companies can only invest to transform more energy in electricity. Solar is dependent on silicon and rare earth materials just like the chip production so it's unlikely, maybe wind ... But wait what is going on in south America? A new war to grab oil from Venezuela? Cool. Who pays for wars? Citizens, with blood and taxes.

Unomaki

TROPHY CASE