What I tell people new to on-call | nicole@web

The first time I went on call as a software engineer, it was exciting—and ultimately traumatic. Since then, I've had on-call experiences at multiple other jobs and have grown to really appreciate it as part of the role. As I've progressed through my career, I've gotten to help establish on-call processes and run some related trainings.

Here is some of what I wish I'd known when I started my first on-call shift, and what I try to tell each engineer before theirs.

It's natural to feel a lot of pressure with on-call responsibilities. You have a production application that real people need to use! When that pager goes off, you want to go in and fix the problem yourself. That's the job, right?

But it's not. It's not your job to fix every issue by yourself. It is your job to see that issues get addressed. The difference can be subtle, but important.

When you get that page, your job is to assess what's going on. A few questions I like to ask are: What systems are affected? How badly are they impacted? Does this affect users?

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