PagerDuty’s DevOps: Avoiding a Cyber Monday Fail Dana Oshiro

Last year an estimated $7.35 Billion was spent online during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. Coupled with the fact that engineering teams are often short staffed with many requesting the week off, the Thanksgiving weekend could be the makings of a perfect storm. We caught up with PagerDuty’s Dev Ops Lead Arup Chakrabarti to hear his tips for managers during this peak shopping season.

In past years and in dealing with Cyber Monday, Chakrabarti’s own team has actually been more responsive than during regular hours. He offers, “We reminded everyone of the importance of these shopping days and that they represented significant revenue for the entire year. This instills a sense of urgency and responsibility in everyone.

Once teams are well aware of the significance of the Thanksgiving weekend, Chakrabarti also ensures that teams are well-prepared for what is likely to be an onslaught of requests.