<b>Q: What happens if the person on call sleeps through the alert?</b>

<b>Q: What happens if the person on call sleeps through the alert?</b>

A: That's what an escalation policy is for, and not having one is how outages quietly run for hours. The policy defines who gets notified next, and when, if the first person doesn't acknowledge.

A solid chain:
— Page primary on-call. Wait 5 minutes for acknowledgment.
— No ack? Escalate to secondary on-call.
— Still no ack after another 5-10 minutes? Notify the team lead or manager.

The magic word is acknowledgment. The alert must keep escalating until a human actively confirms they're on it, not until it's merely been delivered. Delivered-but-ignored is exactly how things fall through.

Follow-up you'll hit: rotate the schedule so the same person isn't permanently on call, and test the chain quarterly. An untested escalation policy fails on the night you need it.

Got a question? Drop it in the comments.