Firefighting on Interview Day (I-Day)

You can always request a reschedule of the interviews and move them to next week when you are not on-call. My experience is that most recruiters are considerate of different life circumstances. Also, they want you to be successful in the interviews and it is in their best interest to accommodate you and your schedule.

Are there any tips for handling these situations well?

I'm going to be honest - Stuff like this is why you generally take PTO for onsite interviews in particular. It's overly optimistic and risky to try and double-dip, haha.

At a higher-level, being vulnerable to random issues blindsiding you is generally a sign that your team's oncall process isn't very good. I highly recommend joining this upcoming event to learn more: Revamping Oncall For 20 Instagram Engineers - Senior to Staff Project

In an ideal situation, you know for a fact that you aren't on point for fixing fires when you aren't oncall. This means that when you're not oncall, you should be able to safely take phone screens at least during working hours.

I guess if something does, it all comes down to making the judgment call about what is more important, the specific issue, or my onsite, and then go from there.

Your onsite is probably more important if you do end up in this scenario - You'll have to make something up and find someone else to handle it 😂

Yes, oncall is indeed an issue at my current job. Hence the need to move!

Thanks Touseef and Alex!