Senior DevOps, cloud and AI help for teams that are scaling fast
Your product is growing faster than your infrastructure. I help startups and mid-size companies fix delivery pipelines, tame cloud costs and complexity, and ship AI features that hold up in production, without a long hiring process.
- →CI/CD, release process and environments
- →Cloud architecture, reliability, security basics and cost
- →Infrastructure-as-code and automation gaps
- →Where AI can realistically help (and where it can't)
- →A written report with prioritized recommendations, effort estimates and a walkthrough call
Who this is for
Startups past product-market fit
Your deploys, environments and cloud bill weren't built for the next stage.
Mid-size companies
Your engineering team needs senior DevOps or AI expertise without adding a full-time hire.
CTOs and engineering leads
You want an independent second opinion before a major infrastructure or AI investment.
Not a fit: one-off website builds, or teams looking for the lowest hourly rate.
How I can help
The 2-Week DevOps, Cloud & AI Review
In two weeks, I review how your team builds, ships and runs software, and you get a clear, prioritized plan.
- →CI/CD, release process and environments
- →Cloud architecture, reliability, security basics and cost
- →Infrastructure-as-code and automation gaps
- →Where AI can realistically help (and where it can't)
- →A written report with prioritized recommendations, effort estimates and a walkthrough call
Fractional Senior Engineer / CTO Advisory
Senior technical judgment a few hours a week, on a monthly retainer.
- →Architecture and infrastructure decisions
- →Hiring help, vendor and tool selection
- →Hands-on reviews of designs, pull requests and incidents
- →A sounding board for your engineering leadership
Fixed-Scope Builds
One clearly defined outcome, delivered end to end at an agreed scope and price.
- →CI/CD pipelines and release automation
- →Infrastructure automation and infrastructure-as-code
- →Cloud migrations and environment cleanup
- →AI integrations: assistants, document processing, internal tools on your own data
How it works
- Step 1
Free 30-minute call
We talk through where things stand and what's slowing you down. You leave with a clear next step, whether or not we work together.
- Step 2
A fixed plan and price
For the review or a build, you get a written scope and fixed price before any work starts.
- Step 3
Delivery and handover
I do the work, document it, and walk your team through it so you aren't dependent on me afterwards.
Selected experience
A few examples from my career as an architect and DevOps lead. More about me
Fujitsu · Technical Architect (DevOps)
Building and maintaining large-scale CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps across multiple OpenShift clusters for a government modernization program, designing an internal AI platform that processes RFP leads, and supporting product teams on AWS and Azure.
Kinaxis · Team Lead, DevOps Automation
Led automation of deployments for Kinaxis's flagship supply chain platform: new infrastructure with Terraform, installation and configuration with Ansible, and security risk analysis that shaped the software and infrastructure design.
McCain Foods · DevOps Engineer
Created the corporate strategy for adopting DevOps practices, worked with business units on improving their processes, and helped new digital teams improve their CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps, with code management and branching practices.
Canada Life · Senior Systems Architect
Containerized application services with Docker and Kubernetes to automate deployment, shaped CI/CD pipelines and solution architecture with .NET teams, ran the Atlassian suite, and built RPA solutions for business units across the company.
Common questions
- What do I get at the end of the 2-week review?
- A written report with prioritized recommendations covering your delivery pipeline, cloud setup and AI opportunities, plus effort estimates and a walkthrough call with your team. You're free to implement it yourselves, with me, or with someone else.
- You're one person. Is that a risk?
- You get senior expertise directly, with no layers in between. Everything I build is documented and handed over, so your team can own and run it after the engagement ends.
- What cloud platforms and tools do you work with?
- Mostly AWS and Azure, with Azure DevOps for CI/CD, Terraform and Ansible for infrastructure-as-code and configuration, Docker, Kubernetes and OpenShift for containers, HashiCorp Vault for secrets, and Azure OpenAI, RAG and LangChain for AI work. If your stack is different, ask on the intro call.
- Do you work with teams outside Ottawa?
- Yes. I'm based in Ottawa and work remotely with clients across Canada and the US, in North American time zones (I'm on Eastern Time).
Know where your infrastructure stands in two weeks
Start with a fixed-price review, or book a free 30-minute call to talk it through.
Ottawa, Canada · Working with clients remotely · info@xil3.com