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All Engineers are now expected to be part of a 24/7 on-call rotation

Hi everyone, I know this topic has been raised and discussed many times before. The search results for HN provide a sample of those threads and discussions. I'd like to start another now, perhaps bringing the most recent developments and experiences to bare on this issue. I've worked at a mid-sized SaaS company for about five years now. The company has been around for about a decade. Until recently, there has never been any sort of mandatory on-call expectation towards engineers. While our infrastructure has evolved over the last decade, and our teams and infrastructure specialists have followed those moves, there has been a relatively small contingent of on call engineers and SREs that have dealt with issues in off-hours. Within the last few weeks and without any real prior discussion, management decided to roll out a 24/7/365 on call rotation, that's mandatory for all engineers. There are espoused reasons for why this must happen, including: we need to improve up-time, "we want engineers to own their code for it's entire life", we need to reduce the burden on the existing small on-call group, or "because all the other companies are doing it". I should mention that this new expectation comes with uncompelling compensation. We were told (not offered, in such a way that might be open to discussion), that for every week on call, we'd receive a personal day. When layoffs happened because of COVID uncertainty, it was because "the market" was changing and forcing our hand. But when there aren't enough volunteers to fill the on-call group, it's not a problem to be solved by managing incentives and relying on market solutions, it's a problem where the solution includes elements of coercion and bullying from the top down. I'm wondering what other people think and how you've navigated this issue in your own working life. Thanks

raffraffraff 6y ago
Wow. For me, this would trigger an immediate resignation. It's not just an interruption to my sleep, but my wife's too. Does "management" get woken at 3am? If they want 24 hour cover, they should do their jobs properly and plan for it by opening at least one office in another time zone. If they want fewer outages they should look at their engineering practices, increase % work on technical debt etc. But this is just bad management. Of course, depending where the company is located, it may seem easier to get fewer outage minutes by throwing engineering teams under the 24x7 bus. One more reason I'm happy I live in Europe: the working time act. Edit: I don't mean to suggest that Europe doesn't allow for shift work, overtime, on-call etc. It obviously does. But it specifies minimal "work rest periods", eg: 11 hours continuous rest per day. This means that if you get paged at 3am, you don't have to turn up to the office until 2pm the next day. There are allowance for exceptional circumstances like emergencies, but an engineering-wide change to working hours does look like "an emergency".
- precheckedforms 6y ago
  I'm not willing to resign over this. I'm just not going along with it. I'd rather be constructively dismissed and be eligible severance. I do agree that this is a management failure. Management has known that they were going to attempt an expansive on-call program for well over a year. Since it looks like most engineers are just going to go along with it, it's likely that their judgment was (mostly) correct in assuming they could get away with it. Overall the lack of integrity and character is deeply disappointing, though not entirely surprising. Like many companies, the company has "values" that they tout but regularly fail to realize. There's always some story as to why a given exception is not actually contradictory, but the rationale is never convincing. For reference our company has it's HQ in Canada but offices in the US and Europe. European team members are surely protected by the working time act.

raffraffraff 6y ago

Wow. For me, this would trigger an immediate resignation. It's not just an interruption to my sleep, but my wife's too. Does "management" get woken at 3am? If they want 24 hour cover, they should do their jobs properly and plan for it by opening at least one office in another time zone. If they want fewer outages they should look at their engineering practices, increase % work on technical debt etc. But this is just bad management. Of course, depending where the company is located, it may seem easier to get fewer outage minutes by throwing engineering teams under the 24x7 bus. One more reason I'm happy I live in Europe: the working time act. Edit: I don't mean to suggest that Europe doesn't allow for shift work, overtime, on-call etc. It obviously does. But it specifies minimal "work rest periods", eg: 11 hours continuous rest per day. This means that if you get paged at 3am, you don't have to turn up to the office until 2pm the next day. There are allowance for exceptional circumstances like emergencies, but an engineering-wide change to working hours does look like "an emergency".

precheckedforms 6y ago
I'm not willing to resign over this. I'm just not going along with it. I'd rather be constructively dismissed and be eligible severance. I do agree that this is a management failure. Management has known that they were going to attempt an expansive on-call program for well over a year. Since it looks like most engineers are just going to go along with it, it's likely that their judgment was (mostly) correct in assuming they could get away with it. Overall the lack of integrity and character is deeply disappointing, though not entirely surprising. Like many companies, the company has "values" that they tout but regularly fail to realize. There's always some story as to why a given exception is not actually contradictory, but the rationale is never convincing. For reference our company has it's HQ in Canada but offices in the US and Europe. European team members are surely protected by the working time act.