Using research to make code review more equitable

Google has conducted a study revealing disparities in code review pushback based on developers' demographics, which can lead to unnecessary interpersonal conflict and hinder engineering efficiency. The research found that women, Black+, Latinx+, and Asian+ developers, as well as older developers, experience higher odds of pushback compared to their counterparts. This pushback is estimated to cost Google over 1,000 engineer hours daily. To address this, Google has experimented with anonymous code reviews, where author identities are obscured to prevent bias, finding that review times and quality remained consistent. By promoting anonymous reviews, Google aims to reduce demographic-based pushback, fostering a more inclusive development environment and inspiring other companies to adopt similar practices to enhance equity in the software development process.

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