3 ms·
As long as it’s managed properly, I don’t see how this is a problem in general. Small to medium sized companies simply don’t have the resources to have a full t
by AmericanChopper 8y ago
As long as it’s managed properly, I don’t see how this is a problem in general. Small to medium sized companies simply don’t have the resources to have a full time 24 hour operations center. That’s at least two shifts, with at least two people each, so 4 salaried engineers just to cover after hours ops. If you have 10 engineers in your company, you’re not going to put 40% of your engineering resources into after hours operations, and that doesn’t even account for when a subject matter expert is required to help respond.
Where I work, there’s an on call roster, that people volunteer to be on, and you’re paid extra for being there. We also have a good post-mortem culture, so after hours pages also track down steadily over time. Unless the company happens to be geographically distributed just right to avoid needing this, I really don’t see the problem with these kinds of arrangements.
- marcosdumay 8y agoYou need one extra person to cover the night hours, and you need to alternate weekends between your staff. Of course, you can't have only one person on the position, you need at least two (but then, you would need people testing your operations anyway). Optimally, you will alternate them between night and day hours so they integrate with the rest of the team. I don't understand how US companies are allowed to not do that.
- donavanm 8y agoHave you tried that before? Theres the obvious, that “night” is longer than business hours. Then theres the squishy people problems of things like sick time, meal breaks, using the WC, holiday, or PTO. And ignoring all that what do you do when there are two discrete problems at the same time? Varying shift times is terrible for humans. In short, no 1 headcount does not 24/7 coverage make. I dont even believe the grandparents 2 per rota is enough to be sustainable. I have seen as small as 4 work acceptably.
- quicksilver03 8y agoA million times this. I'm about to tackle this issue at my current gig, and I won't have any on-call rotation with less than 4 people.
- AceyMan 8y agoIt requires four heads to cover even "20/365" (half the night "closed") and four is, in fact, short for true 24/7/365 = 8760 hrs, while a person works 2,000 hr/yr x 4 = 8,000. If you try it with less, you're lying to yourself and everyone else. (me: worked rotating shifts in a 24/7 operation for years)
- donavanm 8y agoOh I was thinking of 4 minimum for the off business hours coverage. Actual 24/7/365 id put at 7-8 heads. (Me: a guy whos been on oncall rotas for 15 years, worked swing shift for 4, and whos current org runs “follow the sun” support)
- C1sc0cat 8y agoI was thinking more of operations staff which are not paid SV developer wages - which is how BT did it.