Surviving Your First On-Call Shift: 5 Essential Tips

Joining the on-call rotation for the first time can be daunting. With the right preparation and mindset, you can handle it like a pro.

Here are five essential tips to help you survive your first on-call shift:

1. Shadow and Prepare

Before taking on full responsibility, take part in at least one shadow rotation:

• Observe an experienced colleague during their on-call shift (shadow)
• Have a senior engineer watch and guide you through a shift (reverse shadow)
• Use these experiences to familiarize yourself with common issues and procedures

As you shadow, start preparing your environment:

• Install and test all necessary tools
• Verify access to production systems and monitoring tools

2. Understand Your Responsibilities

Know exactly what qualifies as an on-call issue and what can wait until business hours:

• Familiarize yourself with your team's escalation policy
• Understand the severity levels of different types of incidents
• Know when to wake up your manager or escalate to other teams
• Don't hesitate to ask for help if you're unsure about something

3. Master Your Tools

Efficiency during incidents depends on your ability to use your tools effectively:

• Practice using monitoring and alerting systems
• Understand how to use your ticketing system for tracking issues
• Be proficient with communication tools for team coordination
• Know how to access and navigate production systems safely

4. Document Everything

Thorough documentation is crucial for effective incident management and knowledge sharing:

• Log every action you take during an incident
• Record the outcomes of your actions
• Use a dedicated tool or notebook for documentation
• Include enough detail for others to understand what happened and what you did

5. Learn and Improve

Every on-call shift is an opportunity to grow and enhance your skills:

• After each shift, reflect on the incidents you handled
• Identify areas where you can improve
• Seek feedback from more experienced team members
• Contribute to improving runbooks and processes based on your experiences

Remember, everyone starts somewhere. Your team is there to support you, so don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it.

Good luck, and may your pager stay silent!