RFC: Use AMER Support Manager On-call resources more effectively in emergencies
Request for comments
Need
In my experience, the Support Manager On-call (which I will refer to as the SMOC) is an underutilized resource in customer emergencies. I would like to discuss how the SCMOC can reduce the mental and emotional load of emergencies on SEs.
I am thinking about this through an AMER lens, but I'd like to hear input from the global team.
Approach
In my eyes, without knowing exactly what SMOC duties are, I think we should encourage the SMOC to be more proactive in emergencies rather than reactive.
In practice, I would expect that the SMOC would do the following as a baseline:
- Review all incoming emergencies
- Help identify any blockers
- Immediately unblock anything that they can
- Engage in discussions in the
📟 PD Slack thread for non-technical issues - Continue with pulse checks on active emergencies
I am not asking the SMOC to do technical work. If this is a clear-cut emergency ticket, I expect CEOC engineers to handle this following normal flows.
Benefit
Ideally, this will help us identify and resolve, or even entirely avoid, problematic situations. This makes for a better customer experience, and will help strengthen engineer psychological safety in difficult scenarios.
Competition / Alternatives
The competition here is: Other SMOC duties. I don't know what else an SMOC does, so they may not have the capacity to engage proactively as it currently stands. I still think it's worth it to discuss how we can adjust SMOC duties to bring them closer to active emergencies.