How we fixed our on call process to avoid engineer burnout

Intercom's on-call process was causing engineer burnout due to too many people being on call at any moment, inconsistent alarms and procedures, and lack of compensation for out-of-hours shifts. The company created a virtual team consisting of volunteers who took all out-of-hours on-call work from every team, defined acceptable alarms and runbooks, and implemented peer review and compensation for taking on call shifts. This change resulted in a significant reduction of out-of-hours pages to less than 10 per month, improved consistency across teams, and enhanced the quality of life for engineers. The company is continuing to refine its on-call process as it grows, but has seen positive results so far.