Answering the Interview Question: "How Do You Review Code as a Tech Lead?"

Over the past 5+ years, I've worked as a Tech Lead and Lead Engineer across multiple startups and enterprise projects. Naturally, I’ve gone through several interview loops for leadership roles, and one question I keep encountering is:

“How do you approach code reviews as a tech lead?”

This question may seem tactical on the surface, but in reality, it reveals a lot about your engineering judgment, system thinking, and leadership philosophy.

Here's how I answer it, and how I actually approach code reviews in real-world teams.

1. Design Comes First
As a tech lead, I always prioritize design in every code review. Before diving into line-by-line details, I step back and ask:

• Does this solution align with our overall system architecture?

• Is it scalable, extensible, and testable?

• Does it follow the design principles and patterns we agreed on as a team?

A PR that passes all tests and looks clean but solves the wrong problem or introduces architectural debt is a silent killer in the long run. That's why I often challenge or affirm the core design direction before touching anything else.

2. Then, Clean and Intentional Code
Once I’m confident the design is solid, I move on to reviewing the actual implementation. Here, I look for clarity, simplicity, and intent.

Some of the things I pay close attention to:

• Readability & Naming: Is the code easy to follow? Do variable, function, and class names communicate purpose clearly?

• Separation of Concerns: Are responsibilities well-defined across modules, functions, and classes?

• Abstractions: Are there repeated patterns that can be abstracted meaningfully — or unnecessary abstractions adding cognitive load?

• Error Handling & Edge Cases: Are errors and edge cases thoughtfully managed? Is there defensive coding where needed?

• Testing: Are there meaningful unit or integration tests? Do tests assert behavior rather than implementation?

• Performance & Security: Are there any red flags in terms of resource usage, blocking operations, or exposure of sensitive data?

• Consistency with Team Conventions: Does the code follow agreed-upon linting rules, formatting, and architectural conventions?

Ultimately, clean code means little if it's built on poor design — but when great design meets well-crafted code, it sets the stage for long-term success.

To ensure consistency across the team, I rely on tool-based linting and formatting instead of IDE-specific plugins, since team members often use different editors and setups.

For Python, I commonly use:

• Black and isort for formatting
• flake8, Pylint, and mypy for linting and type checking
• pre-commit to enforce checks before code enters the repo

For Node.js / JavaScript / TypeScript, I use:

• ESLint and Prettier for linting and formatting
• TypeScript (with strict mode) for static typing
• Husky and lint-staged for pre-commit automation

This approach helps enforce a shared code quality baseline across the team, regardless of individual development environments.

Final Thoughts
As tech leads, we’re not just guardians of syntax or formatting, we’re stewards of quality, architecture, and team health. A thoughtful code review process is one of the most scalable ways to mentor, prevent future bugs, and shape the engineering culture.

If you’re prepping for a tech leadership interview, or mentoring others who are, I encourage you to think about code reviews not just as a gatekeeping function, but as a strategic tool.

P.S. I'm not claiming this is a perfect answer, even though this approach has worked well for me in interviews and on real teams.
If you think I’ve missed anything, or even completely missed the mark, I’d genuinely love to hear your perspective. Let's keep learning from each other.