4 ms·

Submitter but not OP. Just to be clear the only answer to this is a daily stipend for being on call PLUS a payout per incident (min. 1hr billing). And of course

Submitter but not OP. Just to be clear the only answer to this is a daily stipend for being on call PLUS a payout per incident (min. 1hr billing). And of course, it's opt-in. Anything else is devaluing yourself to the poor decisions of others. "I will work harder!".

lkbm 3y ago
This only works if the incident rates are completely divorced from the work of the engineers. Otherwise it creates a perverse incentive to increase the number of incidents.
- anotherhue 3y ago
  HR and performance reviews should be able to handle that edge-case.
- jrockway 3y ago
  Yeah, I think just paying volunteers to be on call is fine. Adjusted for inflation, I'd expect this number to be around $2000/week. This is incredibly cheap compared to hiring 3 teams for follow-the-sun support, and gives the early-career folks on your team the opportunity to make a little bit of extra money; somewhat rare in the world of "engineering ladders" and whatnot where it is kind of a slog before you are rolling in cash.
chrisandchris 3y ago
No, the only solution in this case is full pay for each minute one is on-call. A (professional) firefighter is mostly on-call on his shift and is paid the same amount whether he's waiting or at an incident. Sure, he does stuff while waiting (like maintenance). But nobody said your It stuff couldn't do maintenance too. If you really need on-call with 15min response time, design your business around it (and your finances!). The whole blog could just stop at: > The CTO mandated [...]
- anotherhue 3y ago
  > pay for each minute one is on-call Isn't that just overtime? I'd much prefer to bring a laptop with me a few weekends a year than be expected to fill a full workday with my family around the house on a weekend.
  - chrisandchris 3y ago
    See it otherwise: It's not overtime, as a firefighter does not overtime 8h a day. It's your job and your job is to be on-call while writing code or vice-versa. I think the only viable method for such a fast response time is that it's your work. You will have off on Friday but work on Saturday (or something like that). If it's more like 1h response time sure, take your laptop with you to familys dinner.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      I don't really like the firefighter analogy to be honest. A Firefighter is on call but to compensate for their physical well-being they tend to only work 3-4 days a week (even if those 3 days are 24 hours spent in the station, potentially on the weekend). Moreover, fires are inevitable and frequent, despite being sporadic. I think there is certainly merit to wondering what format a business needs based on client demands, but a mentally focused white collar job doesn't need to go as extreme as a firefighter who is literally burning out their body in the line of duty.
      - chrisandchris 3y ago
        I partially agree with you and I wanted to use the analogy more for the part where he/she only really fights fires a part of the compensated time and is also paid for being "just waiting". I think taking the analogy to far won't work anyway (fires don't happen that frequent actually in less big cities, there's a lot of other stuff they do, compensation IMHO dies not relate to putting your life at risk at all, there's volunteers to which are even paid less, ...). My main point is along the line if your customer wants these nines, they have to do (pay) something. If you as employer want it, same. You as employee are just at "the end of it".

lkbm 3y ago

This only works if the incident rates are completely divorced from the work of the engineers. Otherwise it creates a perverse incentive to increase the number of incidents.

anotherhue 3y ago
HR and performance reviews should be able to handle that edge-case.
jrockway 3y ago
Yeah, I think just paying volunteers to be on call is fine. Adjusted for inflation, I'd expect this number to be around $2000/week. This is incredibly cheap compared to hiring 3 teams for follow-the-sun support, and gives the early-career folks on your team the opportunity to make a little bit of extra money; somewhat rare in the world of "engineering ladders" and whatnot where it is kind of a slog before you are rolling in cash.

chrisandchris 3y ago

No, the only solution in this case is full pay for each minute one is on-call. A (professional) firefighter is mostly on-call on his shift and is paid the same amount whether he's waiting or at an incident. Sure, he does stuff while waiting (like maintenance). But nobody said your It stuff couldn't do maintenance too. If you really need on-call with 15min response time, design your business around it (and your finances!). The whole blog could just stop at: > The CTO mandated [...]

anotherhue 3y ago
> pay for each minute one is on-call Isn't that just overtime? I'd much prefer to bring a laptop with me a few weekends a year than be expected to fill a full workday with my family around the house on a weekend.
- chrisandchris 3y ago
  See it otherwise: It's not overtime, as a firefighter does not overtime 8h a day. It's your job and your job is to be on-call while writing code or vice-versa. I think the only viable method for such a fast response time is that it's your work. You will have off on Friday but work on Saturday (or something like that). If it's more like 1h response time sure, take your laptop with you to familys dinner.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I don't really like the firefighter analogy to be honest. A Firefighter is on call but to compensate for their physical well-being they tend to only work 3-4 days a week (even if those 3 days are 24 hours spent in the station, potentially on the weekend). Moreover, fires are inevitable and frequent, despite being sporadic. I think there is certainly merit to wondering what format a business needs based on client demands, but a mentally focused white collar job doesn't need to go as extreme as a firefighter who is literally burning out their body in the line of duty.
    - chrisandchris 3y ago
      I partially agree with you and I wanted to use the analogy more for the part where he/she only really fights fires a part of the compensated time and is also paid for being "just waiting". I think taking the analogy to far won't work anyway (fires don't happen that frequent actually in less big cities, there's a lot of other stuff they do, compensation IMHO dies not relate to putting your life at risk at all, there's volunteers to which are even paid less, ...). My main point is along the line if your customer wants these nines, they have to do (pay) something. If you as employer want it, same. You as employee are just at "the end of it".