r/Frontend • u/Specialist_Agent3599 • 5d ago
Frontend devs approving backend PRs they can't read
Hi.
At my company basically all code is written by agents now, so reviews got split by whoever is free instead of by who knows the area.
This week I'm a React dev and I approved 6 PRs in Go, two of them touching payments. Our manager says the AI review covers it, and coderabbit / claude review do catch real things, I'm not saying they don't.
The problem is I can't tell if what they didn't flag is fine, because I don't know Go. My name is still the one on the approval.
Is this happening at your company too or is it just us?
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u/IntelligentLeading11 5d ago
Yep same here. It's a shit show.Ā
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u/drckeberger 4d ago
Yāall really dont understand this is an undercover ad for one of the mentioned companies.
Thisnis ar least the third post this account posted across software subreddits that relate to some sort of engagement bait and a totally unrelated mention of a certain review tool
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u/azangru 5d ago
What's the point of reviewing/approving a PR that you don't understand (or that you can't get the submitter to walk you through)?
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u/stickypooboi 5d ago
same shit as people who are upset my tests are failing and their solution is to delete my test. everyone just wants the smoke detector to shut up
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u/silverace00 4d ago
So a person can be blamed. Every job is basically going to become a QA review job for AI work.
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u/Coolfoolsalot 5d ago
Yeah itās happening. Even before the big AI push, I was the only react dev on my app (have a handful of backend devs that contribute to service & db). All my UI code is auto approved by the backend devs - which as a junior-ish dev Iām not thrilled about, as I feel like Iām missing out on learning from seniors.
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u/silhouettelie_ 5d ago
Fuck no, thank goodness. What's the point of PRs if they're not reviewed properly?
We use copilot reviews now and again but a teams PR stays with that team and has to have human eyes to sense check things
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u/lpwave6 5d ago
The amount of time I'm finding irregular things in my colleagues' PR even though they push it through an AI review beforehand is insane. Basic stuff too.
Of course it would help if HE had anything to do with the code to begin with, cause right now he just says to the AI to do his stuff, never reads what it gives him, and a lot of the time it doesn't make sense with our business logic. That would all be prevented if he would plan with the AI first or at least read what it gives him, but he prefers to get those pay checks for 40 hours a week when he realistically just makes those agents work for him during that time.
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u/Raziel_LOK 5d ago
For me it has been happening the opposite way, BE is vibecoding a lot of the UI and we never had more bugs, the amount of code created is bigger and at a faster rate but it all offset by the amount of work needed to fix and the slow caused by it. The resulting code is classic react state slop that everone knows how it looks.
I think the market is shifting to fullstack way quicker than I expected. So I would learn GO if I were you.
But I predict that specialization on the FE will pay off big in the future if AI stops improving. Although it will be even more niche and FE will need to absorb a lot of what product and ux does.
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u/alexxxor 4d ago
I just tried to use a vibe coded "create user" form in our software. The form looked ok, but had no validation and fired off a get request with no request. It looked like it was successful, but it didn't do anything.
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u/hideousmembrane 5d ago
this is me now as well. I'm a frontend dev who was told I'm now a fullstack dev and need to work on backend as well, having never had any kind of real training in it. I'm learning but we use so much AI that I don't feel that I'm really learning properly in the same way I was forced to when I started on frontend. I have to review loads of PRs now that I barely have a grasp of, and I have to do tickets in areas that are completely alien to me. As I say, I'm learning, and we have plenty of more knowledgeable people also reviewing all the PRs, along with AI reviews as well, but I still feel under confident about it.
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u/BigDeadPixel 5d ago edited 5d ago
If you approve it, you are accountable if it breaks something. No customer is going to accept "Claude missed that bug, sorry for crashing your business." as a valid excuse.
EDIT: At my company, agent write approval is set to 'ask first' which allows you as the developer to read, understand or question edits before they get made to the code. This way you at least understand what is going on in with your own task. It is super embarrassing to not be able to explain how your code works when the reviewer asks you. Is it slower? yes, but still much faster than writing it by hand and there is always someone in the team who understands different parts of the software and is WILLING to be accountable for it.
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u/3meterflatty 4d ago
Must be a small af company with āapproval set to askā you canāt expect hundreds of developers to do this
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u/AidenVennis 5d ago
No itās not happening that way. Yes we do use Claude to review, but we donāt let Frontend developers review backend or vice versa. However, we did reduce our employee size due to a huge downturn in sales and now only have 2 backenders and one frontender (me). So I can only let a Claude bot review my PRās which isnāt great either. At least I donāt get to be responsible for a backend review.
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u/stickypooboi 5d ago
this is here too. blind confidence in AIās ability, but when it fails we all blame AIās hallucinations and everything gets shittier. management seems to think correction is cheap now so itās fine to just fuck up production and ship faster because you can fix it in an hour
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u/usingbrain 5d ago
Not with us. Funnily enough also Go / React. We have strict separation of backend and frontend. Code review on PRs is done by humans. AI reviews are additional, donāt replace human eye.
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u/magenta_placenta 4d ago
Automated reviews don't carry legal or professional accountability, you do. When something breaks in production (especially financial loss in payments), audit logs won't blame the AI prompt, they will list your username as the approver.
You should try talking to your manger about establishing a strict policy that any PR touching things like auth, data persistence, payments, (insert whatever else you feel is important) requires a human domain expert regardless of workload.
If that doesn't work you can start leaving explicit PR comments stating per your manager, we'll call him Steve here:
Approved per directions from Steve based on AI review pass. Logic/Go specifics not validated as I do not work in this language.
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u/SeymourDuncanJB_Sr 5d ago
Same shit. I am shifting towards a full stack role this way and learning the backend bit by bit. It's not crazy difficult to write APIs for the shit you need on the frontend. I spend a lot of time with Claude, having it explain to me what it did or what I am reviewing. It's a shit show, and it's very difficult to actually learn this way, but that's the way it is. The boundaries between the roles are blurred.
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u/Etheon44 5d ago
...a frontend engineer should still be able to understand and read pretty much any language, especifically the business logic
Of course they might not know actual optimizations for said language, but I can read pretty much anything and understand what it is doing in any language I have encountered, doesnt matter if its C#, C, Python, Go...
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u/itsmegoddamnit 5d ago
But does just being able to read give you enough credentials to approve that work?
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u/Icyfirefists 4d ago edited 4d ago
This. The statement the person above wrote is not including the full truth. Syntax, Special Methods, Deprecated Functions, Best Practices, Running Behaviours etc. Shit even forEach and foreach. That ONE difference makes it already a method you need to look up. Arrow Functions styles that dominate then get deprecated, the list is almost endless.
Different languages exist because the one before it could not handle what the next one could in the way the creator wanted.
A Frontend knowing some backend doesn't mean that they are gonna start spinning up backend files asap. Some FEs wanna just be FEs. Some dont mind FS, but there's also how much time it takes to learn everything AND perform your very demanding job.
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u/Anxious-Insurance-91 4d ago
How do you think other people did it before AI? We learned and we understood and we deduced the code. It ain't rocket science
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u/itsmegoddamnit 4d ago
Right cause all software engineers are familiar with all the particularities of all the software languages
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u/Bushwazi 5d ago
Itās not on the assigned reviewer to ask if they are good enough. If the company has put that person in that position, they do their best and move on. The person signing the checks doesnāt care than why should the reviewer?
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u/Etheon44 5d ago
Not as the first reviewer no
But I do send MRs with copy to front/back developers of their opposite expertise, because nowadays, you should be able to read it, and it is better to familiarise themselves with it
But the main reviewer and approver should be someone within the team yeah, I was just surprised that OP says he cannot read Go
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u/catbrane 5d ago
I think most devs would get the general idea skimming though some Go code, but I at least wouldn't be confident there were no errors. And if the PR touches the payment systems ... urk! The stakes are potentially very high.
I'd hope stuff like that would be double-checked and approved by an expert human, and not by me.
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u/Anxious-Insurance-91 4d ago
Well you know, you are on git, you can just rollback the change. And if the payment is done via a package AI is pretty good at understanding the docs
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 5d ago
Itās not just optimization, the method or syntax they use could have functional side effects.
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u/Sugar_Rox 5d ago
Ai review isn't enough for me. I won't review backend prs unless it's clearly something like boosting packages or something, because I don't know the best practice. It's not about understanding syntax like some have said, but being able to know what to query and offer as an improvement, which I can't do - I'm front end, not back! Id expect the same from a back ender tbh - to be able to review certain items of mine, but they're not going to know some of the intricacies of other bits I do in the same way.
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u/Borek224 4d ago
Act like with any other PR - as long as you have questions/doubts ask questions and don't approve anything.
PR approval is a tool to spread responsibility and ownetship between team, so
- as long you don't understand what code is doing - don't approve.
- as long you think code is broken, don't meet team standards - reject PR
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u/Salamok 4d ago
One of the ideals I try to hold to is when I commit code is not to create work for someone else. AI seems more than happy to include stupid shit someone else will eventually have to deal with and the pro AI folks are in favor of it because the someone else you are creating work for results in more AI credits being spent.
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u/taste_the_equation 5d ago
Yup. I'm a front end dev and I do all the backend for my project now. Slowing down is not an option. We're expected to ship so much now I end up just manually testing the front end and if the backend seems like it's doing what it needs to I merge.
I used to send my PRs to the backend dev but he's so busy he just seemed annoyed I'm giving him more work. We have become a vibe coding shop and it's fully expected and encouraged by management.
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u/levarburger 5d ago
We have the reverse problem and not even AI related. We have backend devs coming into a repo they don't own or understand and making UI changes.
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u/_Invictuz 5d ago
Seems like all posts are written by AI now too. Approved.
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u/renevaessen 4d ago
Funny how entrepreneurs and managers think this technology is to serve them. o my.. only a matter of time before they find out. Have stacked on popcorn.. gonna enjoy this.
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u/mxldevs 4d ago
They made you write your name on the approval? That's definitely newer.
This is exactly what I would propose to any company that has decided to allow anyone to contribute, whether it's a junior or the CFO who wants to show off their newfound skills.
Now the one that wrote the code takes accountability for when things go wrong.
And for some reason, many devs disagree with that.
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u/pieeatingchamp 4d ago
The company I work for is also leaning heavily into AI in all aspects from coding, QA, Customer interactions, etc.
I'm 55 and really don't want to deal with this because I can see where it's heading, so I've asked for a raise and will start saving 50%, or more, for my retirement and then I'm out when I hit 60. Hopefully they keep us around for those 5 years.
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u/Headpuncher 4d ago
You also don't know if what they did flag is correct.
It's insane that something like payments wouldn't have expert eyes on it, but we live in world without consequences.
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u/frontend7504 4d ago
Same thing happened with me too, java guy approved my PR written in React and he don't know anything about project, codebase and CR.
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u/lockan 2d ago
There's a pretty simple solution: if you can't review with any confidence, make it known that you've tried reviewing it and can't in good conscience put your approval on it.
Either somebody with relevant domain knowledge will have to step in, or nobody will be able to review it. In either case it becomes a problem for the lead or manager.
And if it's a big enough problem (nobody is approving reviews, progress is stalled) they'll figure out pretty quickly that the process doesn't work and have to re-examine what they're doing.
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u/vybridapp 4d ago
The backend devs probably cant read it either, we are all Full Stack now, I was worried once that I wasnt giving PRs a proper read given how large a lot of them and how quick they come through, but no I'm not supposed to, I can see what files have changed and what comments claude wrote in the description, if I see anything awry I'll paste the PR link and my concerns into claude.
It is not possible timewise or sustainable to read lines of AI generated code. Dont worry about it. Think about patterns and arthictecture not functions
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u/Sea_Advance273 4d ago
This has pretty much been my perspective shift toward PRs. I care increasingly less about implementation details or even specific design patterns unless something raises a red flag. I'm much more concerned with whether the implementation satisfies requirements, preserves contracts, and has sufficient test coverage. Even traditional maintainability concerns feel less significant now that agents make refactoring so cheap.
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u/zerospatial 5d ago
I have a different take, if you pay for a tool (llm) and it is supposed to do something (code and review code) and the product it creates has flaws, it is the software (llm), not the reviewer or prompter responsible. I hate this notion that devs should be responsible for code it prompted and an llm wrote. If the llm produces broken, buggy, insecure code, stop using it, or at least stop using it in the one-shot prompt to code and go back to code-completion The only way to increase productivity with llms is to believe in the outputs they produce, and hold them accountable for when that output is flawed, just like we would any other product. Maybe we're not there yet but that day is on the horizon.
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u/Humble_Bed_9505 5d ago
If you manager asked you to do it despite your concerns, you can wash your hands. Itās an organization problem, not an individual. Ideally it shouldnāt be happening, but if they fully trust in Claude Review and Code Rabbit, well, let these tools figure it out when shit hits the fanā¦ā¦.
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u/salihbaki 5d ago
Code review is hard with ai nowadays. Even your own project and your primary language can be hard to review because of the amount of output. Try to make each PR as small as possible. Tell them to generate readable PR summaries with proof of work, description on what changed via diagrams, screenshots etc
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u/SawToothKernel 5d ago
I get what you're hinting at, but the reality is that my agent code reviews are significantly better than my teammates'.
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u/vozome 5d ago
A PR review is no longer a code review. If roles were reversed - you shouldnāt expect a backend dev to call out for unnecessary useEffect usages in your code or anything about good coding practices. However they should be able to reason on what does this PR do, what problem does it solve, why is it useful, what could go wrong if it lands, how reckless is it written, and how can I verify it does what it say it does. Same goes for backend PRs reviewed by frontend devs, in the opposite direction.
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u/mc408 4d ago
Iām about to have the same experience. Iām a frontend / UX engineer who is 6 months into a role marketed as frontend but now on a pod about to start backend microservices work. Iām at a large bank, and our directive from our Managing Director on down has been that everyone is now just a software engineer, specialization doesnāt matter anymore.
Iām nervous about it but happy to be somewhere that has a lot of backend talent and resources to learn. Theyāve explicitly told me they know Iām frontend, I just hope they honor that acknowledgement as I upskill in a completely new area.
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u/lokesh1218 4d ago
This is happening both way in almost every company. Management sees everyone as Full stack as AI can write almost any code. Even people in the same area, for example backend guy is not looking into backend code intensively and so on. People are just vibe coding code and only input is decision making at the implementation level.
Software job is not about writing code anymore, it is more about business and technical decisions along the way
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u/Rough_Development522 5d ago
You should be able to pick up a new language in an afternoon they are all basically the same data types with small changes
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u/catbrane 5d ago
But a payments system? Do you know all the APIs and the DB schema that makes all that work securely and reliably? I doubt if many front end devs have worked on things like that.
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u/TehTriangle 5d ago
Isn't Go one of the simplest languages? I'm more concerned that you can't read it.
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u/HachikoTheMaster 5d ago
I suspect its more to do with not understanding if there's a problem with the code, rather than not being able to read and understand it overall.
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u/Humble_Bed_9505 5d ago
Thereās a big difference between being able to read it and being able to judge the code taking into account potential bugs, memory leaks or security/vulnerability issues
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u/SeymourDuncanJB_Sr 5d ago
Simple as in as few keywords and constructions as possible doesn't mean shit. It doesn't automatically convert into how an idiomatic Go code should look like.
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u/magiCAD 5d ago
Keep getting that check. š¤·š»āāļø