5 ms·

An easy correction is to only merge PRs from folks who are on the on call rota. Those not on rota can either join or have their PR receive heavy scrutiny

badgersnake 7mo ago
Nah, the rota is large enough that it will likely be somebody else’s problem anyway and the chances are even if it does land on them they just won’t answer the phone. Punishing mistakes with unpaid overtime has never been a good approach to quality. It just teaches management that they can get away with low quality because the engineers will pick up the pieces in their own time.
- gray_-_wolf 7mo ago
  > unpaid overtime Through European lenses this part seems insane. It is work, so pay me for it :) Every oncall rotation I was part of ever was paid, is the "unpaid" part a US thing, or was I just lucky?
  - bravetraveler 7mo ago
    In the US it's common to either negotiate 'differential' pay for the responsibility, or as one might see in this thread, get suckered into it for free.
  - titanomachy 7mo ago
    Working as a SWE at Meta in the US pays 3-5x more than a European tech job (outside of Switzerland). They are paid for it. Paid oncall in US big tech is the exception rather than the norm (notably, Google has paid oncall)
    - gzread 7mo ago
      How does it work out with cost of living?
      - titanomachy 7mo ago
        This is of course a complicated question. The US has many tax jurisdictions and widely variable cost of living, and jobs vary a lot. But I could compare, say, a Google engineer in Paris vs Seattle. A Google senior software engineer in Paris earns €168k per year (according to levels.fyi) and takes home €96k after a 43% effective tax rate. A Google senior engineer in Seattle earns €336k and takes home €239k after 29% taxes, a 2.5x increase in take-home pay. According to Numbeo, cost of living in Seattle is 15-25% higher. Of course, in America you have to fund your own retirement. As long as the pensions plans remain solvent, "savings" are a lot less important in Europe. Anecdotally, I know people who were able to opt out of working altogether after 10-15 years in a large tech company in the US. I don't think this is common in Europe.
        joe_mamba 7mo ago
        >Of course, in America you have to fund your own retirement. Isn't social security a thing? Plus employer funded 401K also? >As long as the pensions plans remain solvent, "savings" are a lot less important in Europe. "As long as" is doing a lot of lifting here, and that's enough if you're lucky enough to own your own property and not have to pay market rate rent at your old age.
        dragonwriter 7mo ago
        > Isn't social security a thing? Social Security alone will, at best, slightly mitigate poverty. 401Ks are generally employee-funded, with some firms providing matching funds, especially during good economic times and where the firm is in a field where the main area of labor relied on relatively scarce so that there is competition for talent. EDIT: The line about social security is a little inaccurate in the extreme case; its actually technically possible to reach a moderate income ($62k/year) on Social Security, if you have a long enough working career (35 years or more) earning at the maximum taxed wages for Social Security (currently $185k+) and claim at or beyond the age that maximizes the benefit calculation (70 years).
        7mo ago
  - closewith 7mo ago
    Unpaid overtime is common across the continent for salaried positions. There's only a handful of jurisdictions where it's not the norm.
- snypher 7mo ago
  I think they meant to say that if the person isn't on the A-team call list, they aren't entitled to contribute without scrutiny.
duskdozer 7mo ago
If 24/7 availability is required, the company should simply hire someone to work those hours, perhaps in a different timezone if needed. Many mistakes are going to be the result of management pressures to "ship" too quickly, incentivizing cutting corners, which someone will have to deal with at some point, even if it's during their regular working hours.
pwagland 7mo ago
This "receive heavy scrutiny" is part of the problem that is raised in the article though: > You are friends with all the senior TLs, so can get them to review your code, but this is not a high-leverage use of time. And then, tying back to ops comment, the engineer gets pinged for their bad metric, because of this additional review.
carschno 7mo ago
There are various technical corrections, with arguable pros and cons. However, they do not match the underlying problem stated above: > the rise of business types in tech company leadership
- justonceokay 7mo ago
  The fact that they are PMs is a tragedy of circumstance, not a moral failing. If they are willing to go on-call for their work they will lose that childlike innocence and become engineers very quickly.
  - steve1977 7mo ago
    > they will lose that childlike innocence and become engineers very quickly. I don't think so. Not everyone has an engineer mindset (or a PM mindset, for that matter). There's a reason these people ended up where they ended up.

badgersnake 7mo ago

Nah, the rota is large enough that it will likely be somebody else’s problem anyway and the chances are even if it does land on them they just won’t answer the phone. Punishing mistakes with unpaid overtime has never been a good approach to quality. It just teaches management that they can get away with low quality because the engineers will pick up the pieces in their own time.

gray_-_wolf 7mo ago
> unpaid overtime Through European lenses this part seems insane. It is work, so pay me for it :) Every oncall rotation I was part of ever was paid, is the "unpaid" part a US thing, or was I just lucky?
- bravetraveler 7mo ago
  In the US it's common to either negotiate 'differential' pay for the responsibility, or as one might see in this thread, get suckered into it for free.
- titanomachy 7mo ago
  Working as a SWE at Meta in the US pays 3-5x more than a European tech job (outside of Switzerland). They are paid for it. Paid oncall in US big tech is the exception rather than the norm (notably, Google has paid oncall)
  - gzread 7mo ago
    How does it work out with cost of living?
    - titanomachy 7mo ago
      This is of course a complicated question. The US has many tax jurisdictions and widely variable cost of living, and jobs vary a lot. But I could compare, say, a Google engineer in Paris vs Seattle. A Google senior software engineer in Paris earns €168k per year (according to levels.fyi) and takes home €96k after a 43% effective tax rate. A Google senior engineer in Seattle earns €336k and takes home €239k after 29% taxes, a 2.5x increase in take-home pay. According to Numbeo, cost of living in Seattle is 15-25% higher. Of course, in America you have to fund your own retirement. As long as the pensions plans remain solvent, "savings" are a lot less important in Europe. Anecdotally, I know people who were able to opt out of working altogether after 10-15 years in a large tech company in the US. I don't think this is common in Europe.
      - joe_mamba 7mo ago
        >Of course, in America you have to fund your own retirement. Isn't social security a thing? Plus employer funded 401K also? >As long as the pensions plans remain solvent, "savings" are a lot less important in Europe. "As long as" is doing a lot of lifting here, and that's enough if you're lucky enough to own your own property and not have to pay market rate rent at your old age.
        dragonwriter 7mo ago
        > Isn't social security a thing? Social Security alone will, at best, slightly mitigate poverty. 401Ks are generally employee-funded, with some firms providing matching funds, especially during good economic times and where the firm is in a field where the main area of labor relied on relatively scarce so that there is competition for talent. EDIT: The line about social security is a little inaccurate in the extreme case; its actually technically possible to reach a moderate income ($62k/year) on Social Security, if you have a long enough working career (35 years or more) earning at the maximum taxed wages for Social Security (currently $185k+) and claim at or beyond the age that maximizes the benefit calculation (70 years).
        7mo ago
- closewith 7mo ago
  Unpaid overtime is common across the continent for salaried positions. There's only a handful of jurisdictions where it's not the norm.
snypher 7mo ago
I think they meant to say that if the person isn't on the A-team call list, they aren't entitled to contribute without scrutiny.

duskdozer 7mo ago

If 24/7 availability is required, the company should simply hire someone to work those hours, perhaps in a different timezone if needed. Many mistakes are going to be the result of management pressures to "ship" too quickly, incentivizing cutting corners, which someone will have to deal with at some point, even if it's during their regular working hours.

pwagland 7mo ago

This "receive heavy scrutiny" is part of the problem that is raised in the article though: > You are friends with all the senior TLs, so can get them to review your code, but this is not a high-leverage use of time. And then, tying back to ops comment, the engineer gets pinged for their bad metric, because of this additional review.

carschno 7mo ago

There are various technical corrections, with arguable pros and cons. However, they do not match the underlying problem stated above: > the rise of business types in tech company leadership

justonceokay 7mo ago
The fact that they are PMs is a tragedy of circumstance, not a moral failing. If they are willing to go on-call for their work they will lose that childlike innocence and become engineers very quickly.
- steve1977 7mo ago
  > they will lose that childlike innocence and become engineers very quickly. I don't think so. Not everyone has an engineer mindset (or a PM mindset, for that matter). There's a reason these people ended up where they ended up.