Direct access to a senior engineer who has shipped production payments and SaaS infrastructure. Used when you need a deep, second pair of eyes on the system you are about to build — or already have in flight.
A fixed-scope deep read of an existing system or a planned build. Code, schema, payment flows, data model, the concurrency story, the failure modes. Closes with a written assessment and a concrete roadmap.
A monthly block of senior engineering time used the way you need it — design reviews, code reviews, an extra brain on a hard call, hiring help, an outside read on a vendor pitch. Async by default, with scheduled calls when they help.
Most engagements end up touching some subset of these areas. Yours might be one of them, half of them, or something adjacent — we'll figure that out on the intake call.
Versioning, contract stability, idempotency at the boundary. How the API holds up as your callers grow in number and stop reading the changelog.
Schemas, state machines, audit trails. Modeling business workflows as explicit transitions so on-call and compliance can both answer their questions from one table.
Locking, transactions, race conditions. Where two writers can step on each other, where they can't, and where the database actually guarantees what you think it does.
Job queues, retry semantics, failure-mode design. What gets retried, what gets dead-lettered, what wakes someone up.
Logs, metrics, traces in production paths. Where the system can go silent and what to instrument so it can't.
Where to commit, where to roll back, what to snapshot at decision points so reports stay correct months later.
Delivery vs idempotent processing as separate concerns. Why the provider's API is the source of truth and the webhook is just a hint to go ask.
Running schema changes on live data without downtime. The patterns that break under load and the ones that don't.
The default is async — calls are scheduled when they help, not imposed as a daily standup. The aim is to be available without becoming a meeting tax.
A 30-minute call to understand what you're building, where it hurts, and whether either of these engagement shapes fits. No deck, no sales pitch.
Within a few days I send a one-page proposal with the scope, the deliverables, and the price. Plain language, no surprises.
On signature and the first payment, work starts on the date we agreed. Most engagements kick off within a week.
Yes. If the review or the retainer surfaces work you want my agency, SaaS Simplified, to take on, we scope a build engagement separately. The advisory work and the build are billed separately — never an upsell pressure inside the consulting hours.
Yes. Send yours and I'll review it; if you don't have one I have a short mutual NDA I can share.
Architecture reviews kick off within about a week of signature. Retainers can start the same week if the scope is straightforward.
A small number, deliberately. Usually one architecture review concurrent with one or two retainers — never more. If I'm at capacity I'll say so up front and offer a start date.
Both, depending on the engagement. Architecture reviews include two scheduled deep-dives plus the written work. Retainers run mostly async with calls scheduled when the work needs them.
Then the retainer is likely the better fit — same access, less commitment. We figure that out on the intake call. There's no minimum scope you have to manufacture to engage.
A short email is enough — the architecture, where you're stuck, and how soon you want a second read. I reply within one business day.