5 Things I Didn’t Expect to See While Shadowing On-Call

Shadowing on-call engineers at PagerDuty revealed a work environment marked by precision, speed, and high stakes, akin to watching a medical procedure. Despite the inherent stress and disruptions to daily life, the experience was unexpectedly filled with kindness, humor, and strong support among team members. A notable instance involved a new engineer learning to resolve issues during a live incident, supported and encouraged by more experienced colleagues, illustrating the importance of humility, gratitude, and peer encouragement in creating a positive and empowering atmosphere. The culture at PagerDuty, enriched with humor and levity, helps reduce stress and fosters a collaborative team spirit, where engineers, even those not on-call, remain engaged and supportive. This environment is further enhanced by the use of gifs for humor and camaraderie, highlighting the importance of presence, encouragement, and acknowledgment in making on-call experiences more positive and manageable.