Code Quality, Code Review and Tech Debt

The codebase is a people problem in disguise. These episodes cover inheriting code nobody wants to touch, making the case for paying down tech debt, rewrites that never finish, documentation nobody reads, and running code review so your teammates still talk to you afterward.

23 episodes of Soft Skills Engineering, the weekly advice podcast where Dave Smith and Jamison Dance answer software engineers' questions. Every episode is free, and each page below has the listener's question in full.

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Every episode about code quality and tech debt

  1. Episode 498: Testing in big corporations and how to get my first management job
  2. Episode 458: Infinite tech debt hack and figuring out what is going on
  3. Episode 452: Consulting refactor and extra work, extra scrutiny
  4. Episode 379: Someone fixed my ticket and is tech debt bad for my career
  5. Episode 340: Productivity lulls and code review showdown
  6. Episode 327: Remote with onsite team and undercover refactor
  7. Episode 326: Good perks, bad code and paper shredder suggestion box
  8. Episode 311: (rerun of 207) Unclear career goals and garbage code
  9. Episode 277: Super long code reviews and replacement laptop
  10. Episode 252: Impossible documentation and unexcited coworkers
  11. Episode 233: Manual unit testing and WFH demotivation
  12. Episode 212: Turnover and self-inflicted complexity
  13. Episode 207: Unclear career goals and garbage code
  14. Episode 170: Code rage and code review etiquette
  15. Episode 156: How to move from web development into other software engineering roles and dealing with slow code review processes
  16. Episode 141: A Rampant Rewriter and Dealing with an Overexplainer (rerun of episode 73)
  17. Episode 103: Team Dynamics and Bad Code
  18. Episode 101: Style In Code Reviews and How To Thank My Manager
  19. Episode 78: Endless Rewrites and Fake Deadlines
  20. Episode 73: A Rampant Rewriter and Overexplainers
  21. Episode 60: Office Arrangements and Disarming A Code Owner
  22. Episode 20: Stories from people who got fired and doing effective code reviews
  23. Episode 14: Web developer prejudice and legacy code

Other topics

Browse all 527 episodes or ask Dave and Jamison your own question.