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Comment by cocoa19 | Hacker News Reader

And I often wonder if on call is justifiable “because you make more money than most professionals”.

2 European teams I worked on paid a bonus for on-call duty, and the systems were so stable that enough people volunteered for the few who didn't want it, weren't forced to.

It was pretty great, I took a week shift every month or so except when I was going on holiday, and aside from lugging a backpack with my laptop everywhere, didn't affect my life at all except 1 or 2 minor issues

as with most roles, I think it is negotiable. You have your professional leverage, expected pay and grit. you need to balance these things.

Also, if you can get an equivalent role with less requirements such as being on call, then I guess it is just a question of grabbing it!

I mean, you have oncall, it's just permanent oncall.

Not really. If I don't agree to on-call, I do it on best-effort basis. That is: "Oh, I'm camping with kids without a computer. I'll try to help you as much as I can. Did you try Z after X and Y didn't work? Ok, try it and call me back how it went, I'll try to Google something in the meantime." If that would happen too often (more than 1-2x a year), I would try to improve the process or consider switching my job. And my phone is silent during the night.

I wouldn't call this a permanent on-call, just being responsive.

You usually get some extra money for the duty. And if you get woken up, the hours you spend are counted towards your normal working hours - so you aren't expected to show up in the morning after putting out a fire. Or you get some more bonus (like 2x hourly pay for the night work). That's about the balance when people are ok doing it.

But it depends on stability of your service. If it is messed up and people are woken up often, then you won't find many volunteers if they have other choice.

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