Stop Asking “Is This the Right Way?” — Here’s What to Ask Instead
The four questions that actually get you useful answers from senior developers.
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#11 · 🧠 Mindset · See the full roadmap →
Early in my career, I asked my tech lead: “Is this the right way to do this?”
He looked at my code for about ten seconds and said: “It depends.”
I hated that answer. I wanted a yes or a no. I wanted someone to tell me I was on the right track so I could stop worrying about it.
It took me a few years to realize he gave me the only honest answer there was.
The problem with “the right way”
When you’re learning to code, everything feels like it has a correct answer. Tutorials have a “final result.” Courses grade your assignments. There’s a green checkmark or a red X.
Then you get a real job, and suddenly nothing has a checkmark. Your tech lead says “it depends” because it actually does. The right approach depends on the constraints you’re working with, the timeline, the team, the existing code, and a dozen things you might not even know about yet.
“Is this the right way?” is a closed question. It asks for permission. And in professional software development, nobody’s handing out permission slips.
Better questions to ask
After years of asking the wrong question, I eventually found a few that actually got me useful answers.
“What would you change about this?” — This gives the reviewer something concrete to respond to. It’s not “is this okay,” it’s “help me see what I’m missing.” People are much better at spotting what’s off than confirming what’s correct.
“What are the tradeoffs here?” — This is the senior developer question. Every decision in code has tradeoffs. Speed vs. readability. Flexibility vs. simplicity. Now vs. later. When you ask about tradeoffs, you’re learning the decision-making framework, not just the answer.
“How would you approach this if you were starting from scratch?” — This one is gold. It lets the other person share their thought process, not just their judgment of your work. And their thought process is the most valuable thing you can learn.
“What am I not considering?” — This is my favorite. It assumes you’ve already thought about it (which shows effort) but acknowledges you might have blind spots (which shows self-awareness). Most senior developers are happy to answer this because it shows you’re trying to learn, not just get unstuck.
Why this matters beyond the code
The shift from “is this right?” to these other questions isn’t just about getting better code review feedback. It changes how you think about problems.
“Is this the right way?” assumes there’s one correct answer and you need permission to proceed. The other questions assume there are tradeoffs and you need information to decide. That’s a completely different mindset, and it’s closer to how experienced developers actually think.
Nobody’s writing code and checking it against some master answer key. They’re making tradeoff decisions all day long. The sooner you start thinking in tradeoffs instead of right-vs-wrong, the faster you grow out of that junior feeling.
One more thing
If you’re reading this and thinking “but sometimes I really don’t know where to start,” that’s fine. In that case, the question to ask is: “Can you walk me through how you’d approach this?” Not “what’s the answer?” but “what’s the thought process?” That’s the most valuable thing a senior developer can give you — not their solution, but their decision-making process.
Steal that process. Use it next time. Eventually it becomes your own.
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