Choose your battles at work.

When you work as a software engineer, there are endless details to debate. Most of these discussions revolve around so-called "best practices."

Spoiler alert: different people have different ideas of what "best practices" mean—and these often align closely with a company’s implicit values and culture.

Consider this scenario: debating whether to follow exact pixel specifications from a Figma design versus rounding to the nearest standard value in our design system. Personally? Not my cup of tea. Sure, I have my opinion, but let's face it: debating over minor details isn’t free. It costs time and energy.

So when I’m reviewing a pull request and someone insists we stick to exact pixel values, I usually just make the change. Sharing my opinion is fine, but blocking the code over something so trivial? Not worth it.

Now, if you’re in a leadership or management role, you have an edge. Ultimately, you're in a position to make the final call and guide the team according to your stylistic preferences. But when you’re working alongside peers, I’ve found it’s better to prioritize harmony over minor victories. More often than not, I just accommodate the requested change.

Why? Because, in the grand scheme of things, fighting over a few pixels doesn’t matter. There’s far more impactful product work to focus on.

Here’s my take: choose your battles wisely. Stand your ground when a code submission could cause a real problem. Let the rest slide.