Prerequisites:

Why On-Call?

We need to ensure there is exactly one person at the same time who is the main point of contact for the users and the first responder for the issues. It’s also a great way to learn about the product and the users and have some fun.

You can listen to Queen - Under Pressure while on-call, it’s fun and motivating.

If you ever feel burn out in middle of your rotation, please reach out to the team and we will help you with the rotation or take over the responsibility.

On-Call Schedule

The on-call rotation is managed through Incident.io, with each engineer taking a one-week shift. You can:

Make sure to update the on-call schedule in Incident.io if you cannot be available during your assigned rotation. This ensures alerts are routed to the correct person and maintains our incident response coverage.

To modify the schedule:

  1. Go to Incident.io On-Call Schedule
  2. Find your rotation slot
  3. Click “Override schedule” to mark your unavailability
  4. Coordinate with the team to find coverage for your slot

What it means to be on-call

The primary objective of being on-call is to triage issues and assist users. It is not about fixing the issues or coding missing features. Delegation is key whenever possible.

You are responsible for the following:

Friendly Tip #1: always escalate to the team if you are unsure what to do.

How do you get paged?

Monitor and respond to incidents that come through these channels:

Slack Fire Emoji (🔥)

When a customer reports an issue in Slack and someone reacts with 🔥, you’ll be automatically paged and a dedicated incident channel will be created.

Automated Alerts

Watch for notifications from:

  • Digital Ocean about CPU, Memory, or Disk outages
  • Checkly about e2e test failures or website downtime