- How should distributed engineering teams handle code review latency?
- Set explicit review SLAs (e.g., first review within one business day) and assign reviewers in overlapping or adjacent time zones when possible. Use automated checks and linting to catch mechanical issues immediately so human reviewers can focus on design and logic during their available hours.
- What is the fairest way to handle on-call rotations across time zones?
- Follow-the-sun on-call, where each region covers its own business hours and a share of off-hours, is the fairest model. If team size prevents this, rotate the primary on-call role weekly across regions so that no single timezone always handles overnight pages.
- Should deploy windows follow a specific time zone?
- Deploy windows should follow your users, not your engineers. Schedule deploys during the lowest-traffic period for your primary user base, and ensure at least one engineer in a waking timezone is available to monitor the rollout and roll back if needed.
