8 min

On-call is a design problem

If the same alert wakes two people in a month, the rota is not what needs fixing.

Idris Halloran

Software engineer, Edinburgh

If the same alert wakes two people in a month, the rota is not what needs fixing.

Count the pages, not the incidents

Incidents are what the company remembers. Pages are what people live through. Tidewatch started as a spreadsheet of who was woken and why.

Fairness is a constraint

A schedule that leans on whoever complains least will lose them first. Make the load visible and the swaps easy.

Send alerts to the cause

Most of the drop in night pages came from routing: the alert went to the team that could remove the reason for it.

Have a number that needs moving? Tell me what it is today.

Next free in January 2027. Send the number, where it is measured, and what it costs you. I reply within a day.

Next free in January 2027. Send the number, where it is measured, and what it costs you. I reply within a day.

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