Pull requests do more than improve code quality. They expose how a team shares context, distributes ownership, and makes decisions. By looking at patterns in PR size, review participation, and response time, teams can better understand their dynamics and values in practice.
In many software teams today, pull requests are where new code is discussed, reviewed, revised, and ultimately accepted into the codebase. Pull request review provides a number of technical benefits that have been shown in previous research on code review: it helps catch defects, improves code quality, surfaces alternative solutions, and spreads knowledge of the codebase across the team.
In the age of AI-assisted development, human PR review takes on an additional role. As more code is generated with the help of AI tools, pull request review increasingly serves as a point of human accountability for the code that enters the codebase.
But PRs are not just a technical safeguard. They are also one of the main places where developers interact with each other about the work itself. Because of that, a team’s pull requests encompass more than just code. They also embody the team’s character. As the place where the real work is proposed, discussed, and approved, they offer one of the clearest windows into a team’s values and dynamics.
Let’s look at some of the aspects of PRs that reveal the most about a team.
Size, Scope and Context
First, there is a lot to be said about the size and scope of a PR, and how the author communicates about a PR. It’s usually a bit intimidating as a reviewer to open a PR with 100 changed files and little context. How a team handles this situation, or better yet tries to prevent it, says something about how much they value sharing context and distributing cognitive load.
On my current team, we deliberately take steps to try to keep PRs manageable. We plan work so that changes stay within a reasonable scope, and when a PR is ready for review, we communicate about it intentionally. A quick Slack message with the PR link and description, plus Slackmoji that serve as a visual cue about size, helps reviewers decide when and how to engage. Within the PR, a structured PR template helps authors to remember to include context, links to the ticket or issue, before and after screenshots, and clear validation steps. Sometimes, commits are curated to tell the story of the change so that reviewers can move through a PR incrementally instead of absorbing everything at once.
All of these things can be helpful when reviewing a PR, but providing this level of context shifts effort toward the author in order to reduce the burden on reviewers. On a smaller or more tightly aligned team, that tradeoff might not make sense, and the team’s familiarity with the work might be expected to carry more of the load. Neither approach is inherently better, but each one reflects what the team values, whether understanding is built into the PR or carried between the people reviewing it.
Who Reviews
While PR size, scope, and context certainly offer insights into some team values and dynamics, examining how reviewers interact with PRs and one another can uncover additional insight, specifically concerning who participates and ultimately influences the outcome.
There are two typical approaches that often emerge regarding who reviews PRs. One is that teams may decide that a technical lead or senior engineer should review every PR in order to maintain a particular level of quality in shipped work, suggesting that the team values consistency and prefers that only a few people help determine what ships. In contrast, teams that value shared ownership may have a different policy, where anyone may approve a PR for merge. In this setting, junior engineers may review senior engineers’ PRs, and are encouraged to ask questions in order to build understanding. As a written, asynchronous space, PRs can make it easier for more people to participate, especially those who may not speak up in meetings.
Of course, what a process allows and what actually happens aren’t always the same. Even on teams where reviews are open to everyone, participation may not always be evenly distributed. Some engineers may have more availability, more context, or there may be an unspoken expectation about who should weigh in. And even among those who do review regularly, the level of engagement can vary. Some reviewers take a deeper, more thorough pass, while others may give a quicker approval without as much feedback.
On teams where multiple reviewers are encouraged to review a single PR, this is often associated with a value of incorporating different perspectives. The idea is that this leads to stronger decisions, with tradeoffs discussed and assumptions challenged. It can also bring different areas of focus into the review. One reviewer might look at whether changes meet accessibility standards, while another looks more closely at performance. Sometimes, this works well. Other times, two approvals don’t necessarily mean two viewpoints. In some cases, a second reviewer may approve after the first without adding much additional input. This could indicate time pressure within the team, or hesitation to challenge an earlier review.
These PR review patterns show who participates, how deeply they engage, and how decisions take shape, pointing to both the team’s stated culture and how it plays out in practice.
These PR review patterns show who participates, how deeply they engage, and how decisions take shape.
Response Time
While how the author and reviewers show up within a PR provide some insight into how a team operates, one other aspect worth considering throughout is timing. PR reviewing isn’t always the most cherished task on a team because of the amount of context switching, emphasis on reading and writing, and sometimes the social pressure of coming up with what to say. Therefore, it’s common to see PRs that are opened and announced for review that promptly… sit for a while before being reviewed. A longer reviewer response time can signal a number of things. It could mean that reviewers are intimidated by the PR or the author due to lack of context or seniority. Conversely, a shorter response time can also be problematic. A quick “LGTM” can be appropriate in some situations, but if this is the only feedback you receive on your PR, how do you know that the reviewer is really looking at your changes? Is there pressure to approve a PR that is preventing reviewers from taking time to leave more meaningful feedback? Does the team value PRs as a true priority and real work, or are they getting in the way of other activities? If there are timing issues around PR review on your team, there are a number of possible causes related to your team’s dynamics that might be worth exploring.
Reading Between the PRs
As the place where much of the work on an engineering team is done, pull requests offer a clear view into how a team operates. The size and structure of a PR, the way context is shared, who participates in reviews and how they participate all signal underlying choices about ownership, collaboration, and quality. There is no single right way to approach these things. Different teams make different tradeoffs based on their goals, constraints, and working style.
At the same time, these patterns don’t just show the intended process, they show how that process plays out in practice. PR processes can showcase where expectations are met, where they are stretched, and where they don’t quite meet the mark. Because PRs sit so close to the work itself, they tend to reflect what a team actually does, not just what it says it values.
They may not capture everything, but as the place where work is proposed, discussed, and accepted, they offer a consistent window into how a team makes decisions and what it values in practice.
