I've received questions like this from very good, very reasonable, very technically carefully managers. What happens is, Mike complains and tries to throw you under the bus, and the manager reaches out to hear your side of it. You tell them Mike is trying to ship code with a bunch of issues and no tests, and they go back to Mike and tell him that he's the problem and he needs to meet the technical standards enforced by the rest of the team.
Just because management asks doesn't mean they're siding with Mike.
I have been on both - actually on all three - sorry, make that four - sides.
1. I tried to ship crap and complained to my manager for being blocked. I was young, dumb, in a bad place and generally an asshole.
2. I was the manager being told that some unreasonable idiot from X blocked their progress. I was the unreasonable manager demanding my people to be unblocked. I was without context, had a very bad prior relationship with the other party and an asshole - because no prior bad faith acts were actually behind the block - it was shitty code.
3. I was the manager being asked to help with unblocking. I asked to understand the issue and to actually try to - based on the facts - find a way towards a solution. My report had to refactor.
4. I was the one being asked. Luckily I had prior experience and did this time manage to not become the asshole.
Right, I think there is always a balance between being strict on code reviews, and just letting people ship stuff. I've also seen the other end of the stick in which a senior employee is blocking an important pr over "spacing".
How does that work? I find the ability to be in these positions as an IC really impossible nowadays. Maybe it was easier in the 90s? I heard contracting was a way better gig back then too, until corpos got all high and mighty about it putting an end to the practice by favoring head shops instead.
> Management wants to break stuff, that is on them.
This implies that managers will do both of the following in response to the aforementioned breakage:
1. Understand that their own managerial policies are the root cause.
2. Not use you as a scapegoat.
And yet, if you had managers that were mentally and emotionally capable enough to do both of the above, you wouldn't be in this position to begin with.
If you are in a culture like this, you may as well just ship slop.
Management wants to break stuff, that is on them.