When a developer reports a bug, and you punish them by—essentially telling them to make a ticket, fix it, test it, and deploy it themselves—you create a culture where they stop caring too.

Ideally, the response should mirror how you handle a customer-reported bug: the PM/DM jumps in to replicate it, assess its priority, create a ticket, bring it into the regular sprint, the developer fixes it, the tester tests it, and the PM/DM eagerly pushes for deployment—because internal quality matters just as much.

Treat your developers like customers, and see how many bugs get fixed before they’re even noticed by customers.