diff --git a/services/maintenance/apps/ariadne-deployment.yaml b/services/maintenance/apps/ariadne-deployment.yaml
index 218e1aeec..323cfe915 100644
--- a/services/maintenance/apps/ariadne-deployment.yaml
+++ b/services/maintenance/apps/ariadne-deployment.yaml
@@ -572,6 +572,19 @@ spec:
           # /health. Three of those in a row and the kubelet kills a container
           # that is working perfectly well. Observed 11 times in 139 minutes,
           # each one dropping triage ticks for the length of a restart.
+          # Startup is the other way this pod gets killed while healthy. It
+          # runs migrations and builds its schedule before it listens, which
+          # can take longer than liveness allows from initialDelaySeconds
+          # alone, and the kubelet then reports "connection refused" and
+          # restarts a pod that was simply still booting. A startupProbe gives
+          # boot up to five minutes and only then hands over to liveness.
+          startupProbe:
+            httpGet:
+              path: /health
+              port: http
+            periodSeconds: 10
+            timeoutSeconds: 5
+            failureThreshold: 30
           livenessProbe:
             httpGet:
               path: /health