Advice for making incidents less painful with Kerim Satirl of HashiCorp

In a conversation with Kerim Satirl, Senior Developer Advocate at HashiCorp, the importance of having a good incident management process was highlighted. According to Satirl, incidents should be managed once every two weeks on average, covering security issues and unfinished commits. A past incident involving a paused database migration emphasized the need for proper tools and processes in incident response. The lack thereof can lead to rushed decisions that exacerbate problems. Satirl also discussed why startups and startup-like organizations often neglect prioritizing incident response, attributing it to cost-saving measures like minimal documentation and testing. However, this approach can backfire when incidents occur, leading to an all-hands-on deck situation where the root cause is difficult to identify due to insufficient documentation. The value of being involved in incident response lies in the ability to fix problems one has built and ensuring that proper tooling is available for efficient communication and understanding of the issue's severity. This allows engineers to focus on solving the problem while others can gather information independently, ultimately leading to a more effective resolution process.