How can I professionally disagree with feedback about my performance after my cr...

I’m a developer, and recently my team lead told me that I had lied about testing some code. In reality, I had tested it, but I later realised I had accidentally shared the wrong code snippet, which led to that conclusion.

Since then, I feel that my credibility has been affected.

Separately, I’ve received feedback that I am a primary cause of delays due to PR quality and scope issues. I acknowledge that my PRs needed improvement and some were completely wrong, and I’m working on that.

However, I feel that the delays are more complex than that. For example, review turnaround time has also been a factor, with some specific developers. I would like to raise this perspective, but I’m concerned that doing so may come across as deflecting responsibility, especially given the earlier credibility issue.

How can I Professionally push back or add nuance to feedback about my performance without appearing defensive?

Frame your pushback in terms of how you are going to be fixing it

So, reading your question - it seems objectively true that you've been making mistakes at work.

Chill, don't worry - you are Human and I, too, could have a library filled to the brim if every screw up I ever made was documented.

But that is still to say - it seems like you've made mistakes.

And when you 'push back' do it in a way that takes ownership and how you are fixing it:

I acknowledge that my PRs needed improvement and some were completely wrong, and I’m working on that.

Let's take this line as an example - let's assume that some of your PRs were great, some needed improvement, some were wrong

I would talk about what changes you've made to address the wrong ones and then use that as a segue to talk about the great ones

for example:

"I've been taking a bit of time to change how I approach key deliverables, as you know - on PR XY and Z, what I thought would achieve the deliverable, actually didn't. Since then - I've insert method to make the change and as you can see on PR A, B and C - the changes have addressed the key business goals"

The solution is to:

• Accept the criticism (even if it's overly broad or harsh)
• Talk about what you have actively done to take the Criticism on board
• Then use that to talk about the areas where you've improved