In the tech world, it is common to perform deployments late at night or over the weekend to avoid impacting users. Generally, these are procedures that require some form of manual intervention to execute.

At Grupo Esfera, we promote automated testing, continuous integration, and automated deployment practices. This allows us to perform these deployments whenever they are needed, improving both software quality and the lives of the people building it.

When we began working with a new client, they assumed someone from the Grupo Esfera team would be online to support the production deployment between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM. Initially, the fact that no one was logging on went unnoticed until they had a question regarding one of the code branches and canceled the deployment. In the following meeting, the request became more explicit: someone needs to be online between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM.

Faced with this situation, the Grupo Esfera team deliberated internally and concluded that the root issue lay in how the code branches were being managed. They realized that by increasing their integration frequency, they could avoid these issues altogether, eliminating the need for after-hours deployments.

They decided not to log on at night and instead presented a list of proposals to the client to ensure better integration management.

The significant takeaway from this story is that the team already knew they had the unconditional support of Grupo Esfera to make this choice, which empowered them to set boundaries without fear. There was no need for them to check in or ask for permission to push back on the client or establish limits. In doing so, we demonstrated that working in tech while safeguarding personal and professional well-being is not only possible, but fundamental to our approach.