What this service covers
This engagement is for teams that have built something and are hitting limits - performance, scalability, security, or maintainability - and need an external perspective before investing in a larger refactor or rebuild. Or teams about to start something significant who want a technical review of their planned approach before they commit to it. Or founders who need to evaluate a technical decision and do not have a senior engineer on the team to pressure-test the thinking.
The engagement is concrete: we get access to the codebase, infrastructure configuration, and any relevant architecture documentation. We review it against the specific concerns the client has identified. We produce a written report with findings, severity assessments, and prioritised recommendations. We walk through the report in a call and answer questions. The output is always a specific, actionable document - not a set of vague observations dressed up as insight.
What a consulting engagement does not include: implementing the recommendations ourselves (that becomes a development engagement), making decisions for the client (we inform, they decide), or producing high-level summaries without the specifics needed to act on them. The report either tells you exactly what to fix and why, or it is not done.
Deliverables and outcomes
Architecture review document
A written assessment of the current architecture covering data model design, API structure, component coupling, identified risks, and specific recommendations. Prioritised by impact and urgency.
Technology assessment
An evaluation of the current technology choices against the requirements - where they are well-suited, where they are creating friction, and where alternatives should be considered.
Performance analysis
Review of database query patterns, identified N+1 query problems, missing indexes, caching opportunities, and bottlenecks in the request path. Where possible, backed by query execution plan analysis.
Security assessment
Review for common vulnerabilities: authentication weaknesses, authorisation gaps, injection risks, sensitive data exposure, and dependency vulnerabilities. Not a penetration test, but a systematic code and configuration review.
Scalability recommendations
Analysis of where the current architecture will break under increased load and specific recommendations for how to address each bottleneck before it becomes a production incident.
Technology selection guidance
For teams choosing between database engines, API styles, frontend frameworks, or cloud platforms - a structured comparison of the options against the specific requirements, without vendor preference.
Team review and knowledge transfer
A session with the development team to walk through findings, answer technical questions, and ensure the recommendations are understood and actionable by the people who will implement them.
Written report delivered asynchronously
The full written report is delivered before any live sessions. This lets the client read and prepare questions in advance, making the follow-up call more productive.
Our process
Consulting engagements are fixed scope: we agree on what we're reviewing, get the access we need, do the review, write the report, and walk through it with the team. The scope is agreed before work begins so there are no surprises in either direction.