Don’t assume bad faith or incompetence based on someone’s technical error. This is doubly important when it’s someone from another team or department whom you don’t know too well.

Remember that there exists a “base rate” of error-making, i.e. the rate at which every engineer makes mistakes, no matter how hard they try. Once in a while, even the best engineer will make a glaring error that in hindsight was entirely preventable.

Instead of offering if-only commentary on the author in question (“If only they’d show some pride in their work!”), remind everyone that we are all fallible. Hopefully, the same courtesy will be extended to you in the future.

• #FridayDevAdvice