1. Let's separate the idea of code review from the GitHub Pull Request feature. They are often coupled, but they don't need to be. You could easily have a polic

1. Let's separate the idea of code review from the GitHub Pull Request feature. They are often coupled, but they don't need to be. You could easily have a policy and a workflow that requires reviews, but doesn't care whether they happen before or after a merge. I'm pretty sure this is how things work at Etsy, and I know there to be a diversity of code review practices more broadly in high-performing engineering organizations. 2. Of course code reviews don't catch all bugs. This is the same argument that is frequently used to reject static type systems and memory safety. The purpose of code review is to ensure that more bugs are caught, the kinds of bugs that can be caught through code review. It also helps ensure that a high level of code quality is maintained, and that at least two people understand how a change works, which is good for team cohesion and resilience.