On-Call: The Silent Force Shaping Engineering Culture
DevOps.com, Wednesday, May 27th, 2026
On-call practices significantly impact engineering culture, retention, and mental health, requiring intentional management and investment.
On-call rotations are a critical but often underappreciated force shaping engineering culture that directly affects productivity, morale, and retention. When poorly managed, on-call experiences contribute to burnout and attrition, with surveys showing it as the least-liked aspect of software engineering.
Healthy on-call environments require experienced engineers, humane shift cadences (every 4-6 weeks), meaningful alerts, proper compensation, and regular KPI reviews with leadership oversight. Engineering leaders can improve on-call culture through simple tracking mechanisms, visibility into team experiences, and systematic elimination of common issues like understaffing, alert noise, and knowledge bottlenecks.