21–30 of 62 posts
You can always simply say “no”. The period of layoffs is over - plenty of SWE work is available everywhere.
It's normal to be compensated for this. At Google my team got $1600/wk because of the required SLA. At a startup I worked at, we didn't get paid extra, but we got an extra day of PTO for every week on call. (This is technically pointless, as we had unlimited PTO, but we did the rotation Thursday-Thursday and specifically didn't have meetings etc. on Friday so that the 2 people that were oncall last week could take a…
How often are you on call.. the whole week Mo-Su?
Everyone understands this to be the standard, and if they try to give you less you should quit or find out that your house is a cellular dead zone.
It's normal to be compensated for this. At Google my team got $1600/wk because of the required SLA. At a startup I worked at, we didn't get paid extra, but we got an extra day of PTO for every week on call. (This is technically pointless, as we had unlimited PTO, but we did the rotation Thursday-Thursday and specifically didn't have meetings etc. on Friday so that the 2 people that were oncall last week could take a…
1600/wk is hella a lot. How often are you on call.. the whole week Mo-Su?
It's a good thing you asked. The industry standard is four times your base salary rate and double the time back in PTO. That rate goes up 10x per child in your household. Everyone understands this to be the standard, and if they try to give you less you should quit or find out that your house is a cellular dead zone.
I'd love to make this the reality, but it's just not.
At one place I worked, I specifically asked in the interview if we would be on call. "Nope." Within 2 months of being hired, everyone on my team went on call, with no talk of compensation bumps. I was put in the awkward position of attempting to renegotiate my salary after just getting hired, or not being a team player. Don't let this happen to you. It's good that you're thinking about compensation for this work, bec…
What can you really do if they lie in the interview?
I’ve always given a comp day per week on call so they can recover.
One place had some magical mythical theoretical formula for adding some unspoken amount to your bonus, but it was never broken out.
We ended up with a generous $ stipend per on-call shift, as a % of salary, as well as time off in lieu.
As generous as it sounds, it was an equitable solution in the end, given that we were supporting a multi-million dollar platform that was not fully stable at the time.
A lot has been said by other companies like "your salary should cover that", but I say nuts to that. On-call should be something people actively want to go on. It should be equitable, not forced.