What makes incident.io special

Today marks my first year at incident.io, it only feels right to write about what makes incident.io special.

Back when I joined I wrote about why I joined, so I won’t bother you here with that again, although I’ll say that the initial impressions have not only been validated but also reinforced.

To put it simply, this isn’t just another tech company; it’s a group of folks committed to changing how companies approach on-call and incident management. Joining was truly about the opportunity to be part of this group of brilliant people, all running to drastically change the status quo.

Let’s dive into what makes incident.io special.

1. Founding team

Founding team doesn’t equal “founders”. Think of it as founders plus a few early folks. I’m going to stay with founders though which might read a bit like I’m sucking-up, but bear with me.

I have a lot of respect for how they think, and their approaches to company building.

They complement each other

The first thing I realised very quickly was how complementary the three founders, Chris, Pete, and Stephen are. That’s a major strength that compounds with the fact that they are directionally aligned. This isn’t to say they don’t disagree, but they run the company as one. Not as three.

They are all about getting things done

They don’t fluff or pretend to agree or understand more than they do. They want to make a bet? They call it a bet. They think work is subpar, they’ll state it. They see work that they think is excellent, they’ll write it up in #gratitude (a Slack channel) for the whole company to read.

For most people, making easy decisions is, well, easy. But making hard decisions is usually harder than it should be. People will procrastinate, overthink, and discuss to exhaustion.

The three founders reason through problems, have discussions with a specific intent, and then decide. They don’t put off what’s emotionally difficult or draining. And running any startup, as any startup founder will tell anyone that’s willing to listen, is tough.

They manage in the details

They are detailed oriented, discuss specifics and ask concrete and relevant questions. A lot of people will confuse this with micro management.

What's micro management?
If you’ve never paused to think what makes a micro manager, here’s my take: micro managers focus on control, frequently distrust (and at times even bad mouth) others, and operate with a sense of disdain of work that’s better than theirs.
In a nutshell, the founders care about the business and how the business gets things done. If you’re thinking that managing in the details won’t scale, I’m just going to say… maybe. Startups are often times about doing things that don’t scale. Personally, I find that we keep proving others wrong when it comes to “it doesn’t scale”.

Let’s turn to the rest of the folks and why they’re special.

2. Talent density

In all companies that have been successful, you tend to have a kernel of talent that was key to the success of the organisation.

I believe that’s due to propagation of culture from those people.

incident.io has brought together a range of folks with a mix of attributes that make for a winning combination:
  • they have expertise; this allows them to build fast and at high quality
  • they work hard, and have grit and tenacity
  • they are passionate about product; they have product taste and love feedback loops directly with customers to build the best possible product
  • they are pragmatic; they reduce fluff to a minimum, they know when to take shortcuts, and when to be methodical
  • they are interested and vested in the success of the business; there’s no such thing as “not my job”, when they say they own something, they own it
Package all of those attributes into an individual, and you have an incredible worker. But because we also pay attention to 'default' behaviours during the interview process—like empathy, curiosity, and a sense of humour—you don’t just get an incredible worker; you get a phenomenal human being.
We're hiring!
If you’re a product engineer who’s ready to be part of a team that values bold ideas, technical excellence, and a genuine sense of camaraderie, then we should chat! We’re hiring people that want challenges that turn into opportunities that turn into redefining the industry.
None of these folks take themselves too seriously either, they genuinely have fun, which usually goes into #memories or #cold-case-mysteries, or #pointless-debates-and-hot-takes. Take your pick.

So, what do you have when you take a group of hard working and fun to be around human beings? Talent like you wouldn’t believe, which allows you to build the best possible product.

3. Product

I’m going to give away the formula here 😬

Aim high

I think there’s probably no introduction needed for 1. Don’t think small, think big, set sights on the big picture and then work relentlessly at it. We have huge aspirations, and we stop at nothing to achieve them.

Stable technology

Stable technology doesn’t mean boring technology. And boring doesn’t mean aged. But people often conflate all of those so it bears some explaining why “stable” means “technology that just works”.

Our stack is very straightforward, and uses technology that is well established: we run out of multiple regions in GCP, we have a React based UI on top of a Golang based API, with a PostgreSQL cluster behind the scenes. And, of course, everything is instrumented to ensure we are able to troubleshoot and understand what’s happening, in very little time.

With a reliable stack, we put our emphasis in improving it (and having joy doing so). That in turn unlocks our ability to deliver quickly and reliably — as a bonus, it also means our focus on innovation is on the product, not in the tech stack.

Respect the competition

Whether we’re leading or catching up, we keep our sights on the goal. We allow competitive pressure to drive our will to win, but we don’t allow it to consume us.

To put this into a (flawed) Formula 1 analogy:
  • when we’re leading, we focus on nailing the best lap, not on the rear view mirrors
  • when we’re catching up, we focus on the overtake, not just staying in their slipstream

Go fast, and don’t compromise

We love going fast. Pace is really everything. The main difference here to most other startups is that we don’t trade pace for quality. That’s only possible with expertise.

When going fast it’s all too easy to miss on impact, building the wrong things, or the right things poorly. Except, generally speaking, this team doesn’t.

If you need proof, our changelog shows the richness of our product evolution, and how much the incident management space was in need of a change.

The formula above works but is not sufficient. That’s where heart, passion, and genuine care come in. To stretch another analogy—a recipe for a three-star Michelin dish doesn’t mean you can cook it like a three-star Michelin chef.

Conclusion

I joined this company thinking incident.io was on an incredible trajectory, now I believe it is redefining the space. It’s on a trajectory of its own (not without competition as all companies do) — and that’s a lot harder to understand from the outside.

Last year the product became significantly better with on-call and our deep integration with MS Teams, where I fundamentally think we stepped up the game in the space. We shipped 68 changelog posts last year. That bears repeating. Sixty-eight. In 52 weeks we felt the need to send a product changelog to customers 68 times.

At the end of last year we started looking into AI and its readiness in the space and how it may very well end up redefining it. Our first feature out of this work was Scribe and I can no longer remember a time when we were running incidents without it.

It’s early days but with a special group of folks, working with a winning formula, I’m confident incident management will look different again by the end of this year.

incident.io feels very special, and we’re not done, we’re just getting started.
~ fin ~
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