The article discusses the flaws in the on-call system in big tech companies and how smaller companies tend to handle it better. Big corporations often resort to a hand-holding approach, leading to unreliable software development and declining quality. On-calls are necessary but need to evolve. The author shares experiences from military duty to encountering on-call duties in the IT workforce. Incentives play a big role in big tech, where the focus is on delivering features rather than fixing technical issues. AI, especially LLMs, can automate mundane tasks for on-call engineers. The key is to nurture a culture where on-call is the exception, not the norm. Contact the author for consultation on improving engineering structure and automating the on-call workflow.
https://reflector.dev/articles/breaking-up-with-on-call/