Hot Takes on Code Freezes

As the holiday season approaches, many engineering organizations face the dilemma of implementing deploy freezes to prevent bugs during high-traffic periods, while also dealing with reduced staff availability due to vacations. The nuanced debate around deploy freezes highlights that while they aim to reduce incidents, they do not guarantee an incident-free period, as issues can still arise from factors like sudden traffic changes or expired certificates. The blog emphasizes the importance of managing expectations and communicating changes to prevent disruptions and ensure smooth operations for both customers and employees. It also advocates for fair treatment of on-call staff, suggesting mandatory additional time off and holiday pay for those working during holidays. The post encourages organizations to use the holiday period for non-deployable tasks and to conduct retrospectives to improve future deploy strategies, recognizing that incidents are opportunities for learning and improvement in team dynamics.