korrents · piece

Why On-Call Pain Is A Sociotechnical Problem

Charity Majors · 30 Jun 2022

Others here said this too

A sustainable on-call rotation needs seven or eight engineers.

Their wordsThe ideal on-call rotation has seven to eight people; five people is a bare minimum.

Also said by Will Larson

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Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
A permanently painful on-call rotation is a five-alarm emergency, not a normal cost of owning code in production.

Their wordsBeing on call should not be a constant cycle of things breaking down and firefighting, or alerts going off at all hours. This is not ‘normal.’ These are telltale signs of a fragile system and lack of alert discipline.
Our reading
Engineers should own their code in production, and it is management’s job to make sure that on-call does not suck.

Their wordsIt is engineering’s job to own their code in production. It is management’s job to make sure it doesn’t suck.
Our reading
Being woken up two or three times a year on call is reasonable, and more than that is a management failure rather than an engineering one.

Their wordsIt’s reasonable to be woken up two to three times a year when on call. But more than that is not okay.
Our reading
A sustainable on-call rotation needs seven or eight engineers.

Their wordsThe ideal on-call rotation has seven to eight people; five people is a bare minimum.
Our reading
On-call is part of an engineer’s job rather than something to be paid extra for, except where paying for it is the only way to make management fund the reliability work.

Their wordsI generally come down on the side of ‘no, it’s part of the job,’ just like it is for doctors.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.