Confessions of a software engineer who enjoyed being paged at 5am

Annie Freeman, a junior software engineer, recounts her unique enjoyment of being on-call and paged at early hours, contrary to many of her peers. Her enthusiasm stems from the adrenaline rush of solving urgent problems, the teamwork involved during incidents, and the valuable skills gained, such as improved communication and leadership. She emphasizes the importance of psychological safety and a supportive team environment in making on-call duties more enjoyable. To enhance the on-call experience, she suggests having a 'first five minutes' runbook for newcomers, unifying observability tools to reduce cognitive load, refining alert systems to cut down on noise, and leveraging AI for anomaly detection and rapid problem resolution. She also highlights the significance of a blameless post-incident review culture that focuses on systemic improvements rather than individual fault. Freeman advocates for embracing the chaotic nature of on-call duties as an opportunity for personal and professional growth.

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