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My strategy is to not work places where I need to be on call, and quit if it ever becomes a requirement. I've never been paid enough to give up my free time.

pm90 7y ago
I agree on principle with this strategy. However, I do want to work in places where I am responsible for operating what I build. I want to know how well the service I built is doing. If I promise it will be up 99.99% of the time but is not, then I need to know if its down so I can figured out why it went down. Being on call for systems you build also leads to better software. It makes me design software in ways that are helpful to investigate when it fails. e.g. my error messages provide a lot of context. There is investment in making sure the service is able to terminate gracefully. Metrics are instrumented to locate when things might be off. What this means is that for things that I build, I often don't get paged as often. Its in my interest to ensure that the service is honest, well designed and well built. When I do get paged, its for something that's seriously wrong. Anyways, I've been lucky to be in this position. What I've observed for many teams is that they inherit flaky systems which they have to make more reliable; but in the meanwhile every OC shift is an absolute slog, requiring 40 hours/week dedication by people.
- horsawlarway 7y ago
  My approach has been to request ownership before agreeing to be on call. If I'm going to be responsible for what I build at all times, then I'm going to be compensated for what it's earning at all times. That means options, stock, or profit sharing (with a large preference for stock). Otherwise I feel like this relationship is strictly abusive. Alternatively, my contracting rate is 150 an hour. I'll agree to work up to 70 hours a week, but everything after 50 is compensated hourly. On call counts, regardless of whether I actually get pinged.
dopylitty 7y ago
This is the right answer. If a company thinks its system is critical 24x7 then it should have actual staffing 24x7. On-call is the type of egregious abuse of employees that an IT union would be able to fight against. Right now companies can take advantage of people who are desperate (H1-B, young parents, etc) and don’t have the freedom to take a stand like the above poster but if all IT workers banded together it would be possible to fight against the practice.

pm90 7y ago

I agree on principle with this strategy. However, I do want to work in places where I am responsible for operating what I build. I want to know how well the service I built is doing. If I promise it will be up 99.99% of the time but is not, then I need to know if its down so I can figured out why it went down. Being on call for systems you build also leads to better software. It makes me design software in ways that are helpful to investigate when it fails. e.g. my error messages provide a lot of context. There is investment in making sure the service is able to terminate gracefully. Metrics are instrumented to locate when things might be off. What this means is that for things that I build, I often don't get paged as often. Its in my interest to ensure that the service is honest, well designed and well built. When I do get paged, its for something that's seriously wrong. Anyways, I've been lucky to be in this position. What I've observed for many teams is that they inherit flaky systems which they have to make more reliable; but in the meanwhile every OC shift is an absolute slog, requiring 40 hours/week dedication by people.

horsawlarway 7y ago
My approach has been to request ownership before agreeing to be on call. If I'm going to be responsible for what I build at all times, then I'm going to be compensated for what it's earning at all times. That means options, stock, or profit sharing (with a large preference for stock). Otherwise I feel like this relationship is strictly abusive. Alternatively, my contracting rate is 150 an hour. I'll agree to work up to 70 hours a week, but everything after 50 is compensated hourly. On call counts, regardless of whether I actually get pinged.

dopylitty 7y ago

This is the right answer. If a company thinks its system is critical 24x7 then it should have actual staffing 24x7. On-call is the type of egregious abuse of employees that an IT union would be able to fight against. Right now companies can take advantage of people who are desperate (H1-B, young parents, etc) and don’t have the freedom to take a stand like the above poster but if all IT workers banded together it would be possible to fight against the practice.