Your team’s throughput might be misleading you
High PR counts often mask a growing review tax that burns out senior talent and creates fragile, unmaintainable systems.
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You’ve seen the dashboard. Your team’s PR throughput is up thirty percent. Tickets close faster. On paper, your team looks more productive than ever. The “AI era” has arrived, and the metrics seem to prove the investment was worth it.
But talking to your senior engineers, the vibe you feel is different. They’re exhausted. They feel like they’re drowning in a sea of what several practitioners call “slop”. While the “typing” part of the job has been compressed, the cognitive load of shipping a single feature has actually intensified.
We are currently living through a m…
