Work

No one ever says: “I want to ack PagerDuty alerts when I grow up”. Lost sleep. Diverted focus. Scrambling under pressure. There’s no shortage of downsides to being on the frontline for a business’s technology. Still, a well run on-call rotation is key to the proper care and feeding of any company’s technology stack. A healthy on-call rotation shines a bright light on weaknesses and implements improvements with urgency. It requires a team with sharpened communication practices to do it well. ...

Over the past few years I’ve worked on opposite extremes of the remote/on-site workplace spectrum. My current employer maintains top notch office facilities complete with chef prepared lunches, bio-walls, lego murals, and slides. Previously, I worked with a fully distributed company of 75+ people that had a strong culture and no physical office space at all. There are definite trade-off’s to both types of working environments. Whether your team is on-site or on-the-beach, I’ve learned that teams can find serious benefits in adopting remote-first communication patterns. ...