Mentor reviews: the comment that references your flame graph

Generic praise does not change behavior. In mentor reviews we require references: a function name, a span attribute, or a line range. If a mentor cannot point to artifacts, the feedback goes back for revision. This post collects anonymized snippets from recent cohorts—always with consent. One note compared two pprof captures side by side; another linked a failing contract test to a proto field number. The emotional tone varies: some edits are blunt, others read like a checklist. We end with a limitation: mentors are not on-call for your employer’s incidents. Office hours stay bounded so quality stays high.