Developer on call

magoo84

Hi there

I'm curious to know how many other software developers out there have an on call requirement from their employer i.e. Are many of you required to have 24/7 availability for a certain number of days per month ?

Thanks

L.Jenkins

In all my years, I've never been in a position requiring me to be on call. I suppose in a Company like IBM, where Developers would also be considered 3rd level support.

magoo84

I've been asked to do it recently, because our company is very small and we have a couple of customers with on call as part of their SLA. It seems to be common enough in U.S. Tech companies where they assume there will be a high employee attrition rate and therefore they work them to the bone

Manach

You might get enlisted into on call support, on a "temporary" basis. Usually there will be vague mutterings on contractual obligations based on "and any other directed work" which seems to cover everything.
Best to get both an agreement on what is covered and insist a stipend for the time on call as well as extra if actually utilised.

cython

Some devs in my place would be on call from time to time, but it would be infrequent/ad hoc, and not typically a requirement. Usual scenario would be major client upgrade, in particular one weekend every year when every single client has to deploy an upgrade (financial software, and the updated messaging standard takes effect), and even then it would only be a handful on call. Other than that most might not even do it as often as once a year. DBAs and technical consultants would do it more often (since the devs have no great insight into deployment, and issues arising there), but paid each time, and not aware of it being contractually obligated.

BrokenArrows

I'm not personally ever on call but there is a development department in our company who always have a person on call (7am-11pm). They rotate it every week.
The person gets a base amount for the week and an extra amount per call they receive.
I believe the customer pays for the out of hours dev support.

EamonnDunne

I've done it in one job, similarly because it was a small company and developers were essentially doing "dev ops" before that phrase was coined.

Had no problem with it as it was an extra few 100 a week.

Evil Phil

I did it on a couple of times back when I was a contractor. Of course as a contractor you get paid for every hour your one call, and overtime as soon as you get called.

The Corinthian

As has been said, it is sometimes required, sometimes at critical points in the project life-cycle (e.g. just after going live) or due to an SLA requirement.

Question is how it is handled, particularly how the developer is recompensed. If you're on call, you can't go on holiday, make any firm plans, go out drinking or anything that may have to be dropped at a moment's notice if you are actually called.

As Evil Phil said, this will generally mean you get paid for the on call hours. If called you get overtime. You never end up too much on call. In other companies, you'll be expected to be on call for free, when called do free overtime, on top of your normal working hours (perhaps with some never-never promise of time off) and in some cases be the only one on call for weeks or months without end.

If you fall into the latter category, I'd suggest either refusing unless they give you a better deal or finding a better job. The former because they probably have attrition rates they can barely afford and will think twice (seeing as they need you) and the latter because there are plenty of better roles out there than the type that would expect think kind of slave labour - and working for free is slave labour, last I checked.

magoo84

Thanks for the replies guys. Just for added info, we'll be compensated by 170 euros before tax for every week that we do on call on top of our monthly salaray. We're likely to have to be on call two weeks out of every month.

Aswerty

Just note that you'll be taxed approx. 50% on that (assuming you're in the upper tax band).

If you break that down you make about 66c an hour – in the pocket – to be on call. I'm not familiar with on-call rates but to me that seems utterly pathetic. That's assuming the overtime is paid separately. If it isn't I seriously don't know how anyone could agree to that.

Also you be on call 50% of your life now. That's a pretty big commitment in and of itself. For me I can honestly say what you've posted would be sufficient reason to hand in my notice.

BrokenArrows

magoo84 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies guys. Just for added info, we'll be compensated by 170 euros before tax for every week that we do on call on top of our monthly salaray. We're likely to have to be on call two weeks out of every month.

I hope that's a base amount for being on call and if you get called you get paid extra?

magoo84

BrokenArrows wrote: »

I hope that's a base amount for being on call and if you get called you get paid extra?

No I'm afraid not , its a flat add on to my salary

The Corinthian

magoo84 wrote: »

No I'm afraid not , its a flat add on to my salary

Do you get paid by bank transfer or anal insertion?

I'm out of touch with Irish tax rates, but if what Aswerty said was correct, it was a pretty terrible deal. But that there's no call-out rate and you're expected to be on call half of the month - forget holidays, going out for a few jars and the like - is pretty criminal. You're being bent over, frankly, and not in the good way.

cython

Sounds like a screw job to me also. I've worked in a company where first-line support got about 2x what you are getting for being on call (€50 supplement per day), and an additional fee if they got called and it took over a time threshold. For developer on call, €170 flat rate is absolute pants, IMHO.

BrokenArrows

magoo84 wrote: »

No I'm afraid not , its a flat add on to my salary

Thats unacceptable. £170 per week is absolutely awful. Even though you may not have to do any work you are still not free to so your own stuff.

Its one thing if it was one week every now and then but having to do it two weeks in a month.

You need to either ask for a significant increase in the base rate (3x) or to get paid per call or find a better job.

Tow

I have seen an extra 33% of salary for being on call. Low probability of ever being called and if your were call, you were on the pigs back...