Fractional DevOps & platform support
Not every company needs a full-time platform team. Many need someone senior who knows the systems, keeps them healthy, and handles the infrastructure work nobody else has time for.
Sound familiar?
- Infrastructure work keeps losing to product work, until it becomes an emergency.
- The platform was built by someone who has since moved on.
- Upgrades, patches, and renewals happen when something breaks, not before.
- You need senior judgment a few days a month, not a full-time hire.
- Developers spend their afternoons debugging pipelines instead of shipping.
How I approach it
Fractional support works best as a standing relationship rather than a ticket queue. I get to know your systems, keep a running list of what needs attention, and handle the changes, upgrades, and investigations that keep the platform healthy.
The scope is agreed per month and moves with you: more hands-on work during a migration, lighter maintenance once things settle.
What you get
- 01
Cloud & Kubernetes operations
Day-to-day care of your cloud accounts and clusters.
- 02
Deployments & infrastructure changes
Planned changes made through code and review, not the console.
- 03
Monitoring & troubleshooting
Investigating alerts and issues, and fixing the cause rather than the symptom.
- 04
Maintenance & upgrades
Version upgrades, patching, and housekeeping on a schedule instead of in a crisis.
- 05
Reliability improvements
A steady backlog of changes that make the platform cheaper and easier to run.
What I work with
Where I’ve done this
- Case study · HealthcareBuilding the cloud foundation for enterprise healthcare dataA reusable Google Cloud foundation that let a small infrastructure function support roughly 40–50 data engineers and 10 analysts.
- Case study · Enterprise PlatformOperationalizing an enterprise Kubernetes platformShared deployment, traffic, and observability standards that let the platform absorb more services.
“Lambert is an excellent devops guy, great communicator, very friendly, and we expect him to be with us for a very long time. Hopefully he will not leave.”
How an engagement runs
- Discovery call. We talk through your environment, what is hurting, and whether I am the right person to help.
- Assessment. I review the systems involved and write down what I find, with recommendations in priority order.
- Plan. We agree what changes first, what it should achieve, and how we will know it worked.
- Implementation. Hands-on work alongside your team, through code and review rather than console clicks.
- Handover. Documentation and walkthroughs so your engineers own the result, with ongoing support if you want it.
Questions
How is this different from hiring a DevOps engineer?
You get senior experience for the hours you actually need, without recruiting or a full-time salary. The trade-off is shared time, so we agree up front on scope and how quickly you need responses.
What does it cost?
Ongoing support is priced per month, based on scope. Published starting rates for the other kinds of engagement are on the consulting page.
Can we start with something smaller?
Yes. A focused architecture review or a short project is a good way to find out whether working together suits you, before committing to anything ongoing.