Code reviews intimidated me, so I built a course on how to master them
I’m excited to share Master the Code Review: forge a better process, give better reviews, write better code. It’s a video course with 4+ hours of content [1]. I’ve linked a 21-minute sample below [2]. 6 years ago, I began my software engineering career at Amazon Web Services. I struggled with Pull Requests. My authored PRs received many comments, sometimes 50+. They went through many revisions, sometimes 7+. I often shipped late. My reviews of other PRs were surface level and counterproductive. Long story short: I improved. Through trial, error and experience I learned how to be effective in…
In plain words
Master the Code Review is a video course containing over 4 hours of content designed to help software engineers improve their pull request process and code review skills. It covers three dimensions: establishing better review processes, giving more effective reviews, and writing code that receives fewer revisions. The course is for developers who struggle with code reviews and want to develop the technical, soft, and social skills needed to succeed in collaborative code review environments.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
I’m excited to share Master the Code Review: forge a better process, give better reviews, write better code. It’s a video course with 4+ hours of content [1]. I’ve linked a 21-minute sample below [2]. 6 years ago, I began my software engineering career at Amazon Web Services. I struggled with Pull Requests. My authored PRs received many comments, sometimes 50+. They went through many revisions, sometimes 7+. I often shipped late. My reviews of other PRs were surface level and counterproductive. Long story short: I improved. Through trial, error and experience I learned how to be effective in all 3 dimensions of code reviews: process, reviewer, and author. I came to realize that there isn’t much information out there, giving developers actionable guidance to succeed in a code review environment. Doing so takes specific soft skills, social skills, and technical skills. Very few people talk about them. Late 2020, I started writing about code reviews on my Medium, Twitter [3] and LinkedIn. I grew from 0 to almost 17K followers across platforms. The internet held me accountable for ambiguities and inaccuracies of my public writing. I learned a lot, and leveraged both positive and negative feedback to refine my ideas. My writing experience gave me the confidence to build the course. I created it for my younger self, and I hope developers everywhere find it useful. I launched it a month ago. So far there have been more than 650 students. I’ve received positive feedback from senior managers and principal engineers across big tech. Happy to answer questions! [1] Course: https://curtiseinsmann.gumroad.com/l/code-review-course [2] Sample video — Writing effective code review comments: https://app.gumroad.com/s/90c67f7093db4dd0d544187b0a29bccf/vcisZ5CTogObOj95pBKvHQ== [3] Example Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/curtiseinsmann/status/1317149417330364421?s=20&t=q4gYZPN4BhXDrHtcTTiHmA
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