Imagine for a second that the manager is wrong in his/her judgement. Now the developer has to choose between arguing with the manager and risk being viewed as insubordinate or just going along with the feedback and letting the software suffer the consequences.
No it's not. It's hinged on the idea that the manager's job is to teach his people with the knowledge and experience he's acquired. None of this suggests he's infallible, nor does the article say as much at any point.
> Now the developer has to choose between arguing with the manager and risk being viewed as insubordinate or just going along with the feedback and letting the software suffer the consequences.
If the culture is such a rigid hierarchy, they're not going to be able to deal with a senior engineer any better.
And when you have subordinates this cultural problem is easy to fix. They'll invariably think you're wrong, and if they're reluctant to say so, you just tell them, "if you think I'm wrong, it's your job to say so, so out with it."
The author notes your objection, and addresses it:
"There’s a fine line to be walked between managing the pull request process and micro-managing it. What happens within any specific pull request is the domain of the team so you should resist the urge to intervene frequently within the process itself. The behavioural trends in the process are your domain and if you’re running a meta-review process well your work will be predominantly behind the scenes."
Is "meta review" really a value add for software companies? Is this advice for Managers of peace-time companies who can't find anything more valuable to do with their time?
We mostly accept the need these days to moderate other online social behavior, like on HN, to reduce potential damage from ego/politics. Hopefully the need is lower in a professional environment like SD, but I could still see it being useful when things go off the rails.
And yes, effective culture around PRs seems valuable. My current team seems to have very inconsistent expectations, and would benefit from someone with authority steering people in the right direction.