If you see someone do something that’s suboptimal, then you should feel comfortable pointing out that behavior even if they are more senior than you. Of course, do this in a well-intended way.

I titled this TIL aggressively instead of “facts over organizational rank” to convey the importance of sticking to this mindset. I come from a collectivist elders-respecting culture, so disregarding seniority is very much not the norm. But I’m convinced that making decisions based on facts over organization rank is more effective, so I see it necessary to fully adopt this mindset.

Just because you’re new on a team or have less experience than other people doesn’t mean that your ideas are bad or what the team is doing is good. I had a bias for this before. I hope to view ideas for what they are: If they’re bad, they’re bad. If they’re good, they’ll stand on their own merits.

If it ain’t broken don’t fix it. But if it ain’t broken, don’t assume that it can’t be improved.

Eg.

Some people keep it in their heads. They’re not rockstar developers, they’re developers who are harder to work with because they don’t leave a paper trail.