[mrloba]

Last time I worked on call I was compensated 2 hours overtime for every time I opened the laptop, as well as a fixed rate for the week. I was also able to convert some of the fixed rate to days off the week after. Still, having to wake up multiple times each night wasn't worth any compensation to me. I suppose you're correct that compensation should be tailored to each situation, but the examples you give seem way too low to me. 350$ is nothing if there's any meaningful amount of incidents to handle. My company paid twice that, 10 years ago. I guess it would be ok if nothing really ever happens.

[lawrjone]

Someone said similar in another thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/devops/comments/ve9jge/how_do_you_c...

My answer is yes, the on-call compensation is more about keeping healthy dynamics of on-call than it is about materially impacting your total comp.

I've worked in places where on-call pay was material before, and while it's nice, it comes with disadvantages too. As an example, you try hard to keep shifts balanced because if someone covers you and you don't do a shift that month, you notice it in your paycheck.

That's not always a good thing, if you want to encourage people to switch shifts to prioritise their health and reliable on-call cover.

[hwntw]

In my most recent role I wasn't on-call, but would keep an eye on monitors out of hours and if around, fix issues as they arose (I guess it was unpaid, but would just take hours off in-lieu). That's perfectly fine to me, I'm well paid, should (probably!) have written more resilient code the first time around, and if I'm not doing anything much anyway then it's not that big of a deal to hop online to fix an issue.

I would never accept on-call work (even if paid), even if no incidents ever happened because of the infringement that has on your lifestyle. Realistically it means I won't be able to attend church the Sundays I'm on, go for a long run, on a hike (if we have one of the only nice Saturdays of the year), or even visit family (some of my family have a terrible internet connection!), because even if nothing happens then there's the risk something _might_ happen: and if it did, I wouldn't be able to respond if I were doing one of those activities. And for me, no amount of money would be enough to compensate me for that.

[evnsio]

It's hard to assess on-call comp without the context of pager load, stage of company and a myriad of other factors. We've done some research from the market though, and have some interesting results we'll be sharing soon! (see https://twitter.com/incident_io/status/1526191169054597120)

I take your point though, and if being on-call is having any meaningful impact on the time you spend working outside of hours, I agree $350 is low. For us, we're an early-stage startup with low numbers of alerts (long may it stay that way!) and the impact is low.

Not to try and defend it too much, but it's worth pointing out that the $350 is there to cover the inconvenience of being 30 mins from a laptop, rather than compensating for the time. We also give folks time off in lieu for any time they spend working outside of hours.

[hyperman1]

As an example: I love to go for a swim with my son, but this means I'm unreachable for 1.5 hours. Even with 0 incidents in oncall time, it severely limits these choices. This kind of thing is normal for most people

[tomerbd]

Even without waking up or handling an issue, a silent on-call also has a psychological tension and should be compensated with time off.

[HL33tibCe7]

If you were having to wake up multiple times per night, your on-call system is completely out of whack.