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A DevOps engineer on retainer who already knows your stack.

Monthly support for upgrades, patching, incidents and the improvements that never make it onto the roadmap. You get continuity without hiring a full time platform engineer yet.

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the problem

Nobody owns the infrastructure between projects.

  • Upgrades pile up

    Kubernetes versions, base images and dependencies fall behind until an upgrade becomes a project.

  • Incidents with no owner

    When production breaks at night, a developer is left guessing in a system they did not build.

  • Improvements never happen

    Everyone agrees the pipeline and alerts could be better, but feature work always wins.

  • Hiring is slow

    A senior platform hire takes months, and the work does not wait.

what I do

What the engagement covers.

  1. 01

    Upgrades and patching

    Planned Kubernetes, node image, Helm chart and dependency upgrades on a schedule.

  2. 02

    Incident help

    Hands on help during incidents and a written review afterwards with fixes.

  3. 03

    Monitoring upkeep

    Dashboards and alerts kept in line with the services you ship.

  4. 04

    Cost check ins

    A monthly look at spend with changes when something drifts.

  5. 05

    Small improvements

    Pipeline speedups, new environments and automation from a shared backlog.

  6. 06

    Monthly plan and report

    What was done, what is next and what needs a decision from you.

deliverables

What you get at the end

  • An agreed number of support hours each month
  • A shared backlog and monthly improvement plan
  • Scheduled upgrades and patching
  • Incident support with written reviews
  • Monthly cost and health report
  • Up to date docs and runbooks
stack

Tools I use

  • Kubernetes
  • Azure
  • AWS
  • Terraform
  • Helm
  • ArgoCD
  • GitHub Actions
  • Azure DevOps
  • Grafana
  • Prometheus
  • Loki
  • Slack
faq

Retainer questions.

Is this 24/7 on call?
No. Support runs during agreed hours with UK working time overlap. Urgent incident help outside those hours can be arranged in the scope.
Do we need a project first?
No, but it helps. Most retainers start after an audit or project, so I already know the setup.
How is the price decided?
After a short call I send a written scope and a fixed quote. No hourly surprises, and nothing starts until you have agreed the scope.
Can we change the hours later?
Yes. The number of hours can go up or down month to month with notice.

proof and reading

related services

Get steady help with your infrastructure.

Tell me what you need each month and I will send a scope and a fixed monthly quote.

Get a quote