What’s it like being an Incident Manager?
I started the role in September 2017, after graduating from university and moving back home to London. Since then, I’ve witnessed Just After Midnight go from strength to strength: our team has grown in size, and we’ve expanded into new regions (G’day Australia).
On a day-to-day basis, I am responsible for ensuring that the sites and applications we manage are carefully monitored using best practices, and any issues are dealt with by our team swiftly. I’ll log into our ticketing and monitoring systems, making sure I’m aware of any ongoing work, or issues reported by our team or clients during the day. I’ll check through our tickets, looking at what our developers are working on and what I need to be conscious of when monitoring our websites and applications.
With any luck, my shift will be quiet – I’ll monitor everything to ensure that our sites and applications are ticking over, and nothing goes wrong. However, as with life, there are always bumps in the road, and I’m on hand to smooth them out. It helps to expect the worst, and to create a plan of action for each client so that you’re never caught off guard. If a site goes down, you have to act fast – every minute counts, as its vital that the issue is resolved as quickly as possible so that the client can get back online. I’ll contact our engineers and work alongside them to communicate everything to the client or agency, from identifying the problem to designing a solution that will resolve it.
As we provide 24/7 support to our clients, I’ll handover over to our Australian team in the evening and they’ll look after our client’s sites with fresh eyes whilst everyone in the UK gets some rest.
It’s exciting to know that my job will no doubt change over the next year as we work with new clients, new sites and new problems. I’m lucky to be a part of such a tight knit, supportive team who are always willing to talk me through new concepts, issues and ideas. I can’t wait to see what 2019 holds for the #jamfam!