What Being On Call for a Blockchain System Really Taught Me
I used to think on-call was about reacting quickly. Production taught me it’s about thinking clearly when clarity is scarce . When Alerts Don’t Explain Anything The first few incidents were frustrating. Alerts fired, metrics spiked, logs filled up. None of them explained what users were actually experiencing. I realized something uncomfortable: I didn’t fully understand my own system under stress. Pressure Changes Decision-Making Under pressure: You avoid risky fixes You repeat familiar actions You delay structural changes None of that is irrational. It’s human. But systems designed without this reality in mind quietly fail their operators. The Moment That Changed My Approach During one incident, we stabilized the system without ever understanding the root cause. That felt like success. It wasn’t. It meant we had postponed learning. What I Do Differently Now After enough nights like that, I changed how I build: I design for diagnosis, not just uptime I reduce m...