4 ms·

On call may page teammates for help, but they might be on airplanes or go camping or do other things that take them off the grid (primary and secondary must not

On call may page teammates for help, but they might be on airplanes or go camping or do other things that take them off the grid (primary and secondary must not). I would really hesitate before paging someone who's on vacation, but he would probably have his phone (not laptop).

andrewjf 2y ago
Having to page someone on vacation is a very very broken organization. Additionally, paging someone when they should be sleeping is also abusive. If you need 24/7 coverage, pay for follow-the-sun. Most of what we do isn't actually that important.
- matrix87 2y ago
  > Additionally, paging someone when they should be sleeping is also abusive. My current job does this, they expect you to respond to pages at 4am You're telling me this isn't a thing other places?
  - erik_seaberg 2y ago
    Seems pretty normal from two Bay Area startups and two FAANG-sized orgs. Primary should respond, secondary shouldn't be disturbed unless primary seems incapacitated (no pager ack) or is at wits' end. Edit: I should add that the secondary gets paged more often while the primary is new to the team and doesn't know how to fix everything. In return, you go on call 1/n less often in the future. If I need to sleep in after a bad night, it's always been fine.
- erik_seaberg 2y ago
  > Having to page someone on vacation is a very very broken organization. I agree, I'd like to see enough written down that no outage ever has a bus number of one. But I haven't been seeing that anywhere. I've resorted to this one time ever, and the super senior founding teammate was very engaged and assured me that it was the right call. > pay for follow-the-sun This seems likely to create a huge team of devs who are seen as interchangeable, no longer paid amazingly well, and don't have enough to do every day.

4 ms·

On call may page teammates for help, but they might be on airplanes or go camping or do other things that take them off the grid (primary and secondary must not

by erik_seaberg 2y ago

andrewjf 2y ago
Having to page someone on vacation is a very very broken organization. Additionally, paging someone when they should be sleeping is also abusive. If you need 24/7 coverage, pay for follow-the-sun. Most of what we do isn't actually that important.
- matrix87 2y ago
  > Additionally, paging someone when they should be sleeping is also abusive. My current job does this, they expect you to respond to pages at 4am You're telling me this isn't a thing other places?
  - erik_seaberg 2y ago
    Seems pretty normal from two Bay Area startups and two FAANG-sized orgs. Primary should respond, secondary shouldn't be disturbed unless primary seems incapacitated (no pager ack) or is at wits' end. Edit: I should add that the secondary gets paged more often while the primary is new to the team and doesn't know how to fix everything. In return, you go on call 1/n less often in the future. If I need to sleep in after a bad night, it's always been fine.
- erik_seaberg 2y ago
  > Having to page someone on vacation is a very very broken organization. I agree, I'd like to see enough written down that no outage ever has a bus number of one. But I haven't been seeing that anywhere. I've resorted to this one time ever, and the super senior founding teammate was very engaged and assured me that it was the right call. > pay for follow-the-sun This seems likely to create a huge team of devs who are seen as interchangeable, no longer paid amazingly well, and don't have enough to do every day.