Independent technology practice · Est. 2008
Someone has to understand the whole system.
Most problems worth paying for don’t live inside one layer. They live in the seams — between the application and the database, the pipeline and the platform, the policy and the person who has to work around it. I’ve spent 26 years working in those seams, and I’m at home in every layer above.
Free 30-minute call · No obligation · a small number of engagements at a time
Breadth
Not a specialist in one thing. A generalist who goes deep.
Specialists are easy to find and often exactly the right call. What’s harder to find is someone who can tell you which specialist you need — and who has the range to just handle it when the answer turns out to be “this one isn’t that complicated.”
Cloud
04- Azure
- AWS
- GCP
- Oracle Cloud
Platform & delivery
10- Terraform
- Bicep
- Kubernetes / EKS
- Docker
- Helm
- Ansible
- GitHub Actions
- Jenkins
- Octopus Deploy
- JFrog Artifactory
Identity & access
09- SailPoint
- Okta
- Entra ID
- Active Directory
- Group Policy
- CyberArk
- OIDC / OAuth2
- SAML
- LDAPS
Security
06- Zero Trust
- Zscaler
- Network segmentation
- Secret scanning
- Firewall policy
- Key management
Data
07- SQL Server / T-SQL
- PostgreSQL
- Cosmos DB
- Snowflake
- DynamoDB
- SSIS
- JSON Schema
Observability
07- Azure Monitor
- Grafana
- Datadog
- Splunk
- New Relic
- Power BI
- SolarWinds N-central
Languages
08- Python
- PowerShell
- C# / .NET
- Bash
- SQL
- Java
- Groovy
- JavaScript
Systems
05- Linux
- Windows Server
- macOS
- VMware ESXi
- IIS
Legacy & integration
07- IBM 3270 / CICS
- Attachmate VHI
- z/VSE
- WMI
- ServiceNow
- LeanIX
- ArcGIS
Compliance
06- NIST CSF 2.0
- HIPAA
- SOX
- SOC 2
- GDPR
- PCI
Also, when a project needs it
05- HTML / CSS
- JavaScript
- Responsive front end
- CMS platforms
- Web hosting
Earlier — through 2015
08- PHP
- MySQL
- jQuery
- ASP.NET
- WatchGuard
- SonicWall
- Android
- iOS
What I do
Six practices, one engineer
Most engagements start in one of these and quietly touch the others, because real systems don’t respect the boundaries between them.
Cloud & Platform Engineering
Infrastructure that is written down, version controlled, and reproducible — instead of assembled by hand and remembered by one person.
- Azure
- AWS
- Terraform
- Bicep
- Kubernetes / EKS
- +7
Security, DevSecOps & IAM
Identity, access, and hardening built into the delivery pipeline — not bolted on the week before an audit.
- SailPoint
- Okta
- Entra ID
- Active Directory
- CyberArk
- +7
Software & Data Delivery
Web applications, APIs, integrations, and the database designs underneath them — built to be maintained by someone other than me.
- Python
- PowerShell
- C# / .NET
- ASP.NET
- SQL Server / T-SQL
- +6
Legacy Systems & Integration
The system that still runs the business, that nobody wants to touch, and whose author left in 2014.
- IBM 3270 / CICS
- Attachmate VHI
- z/VSE
- WMI
- SOAP / XML
- +4
AI & Local LLM Engineering
Language models running on hardware you control, where the data never leaves the building.
- Ollama
- Llama 3.2 Vision
- Gemma 3
- Whisper
- PostgreSQL
- +4
Architecture Review & Due Diligence
A second opinion from someone who has built the thing you’re about to commit to — while it’s still cheap to change your mind.
- Architecture review
- Technical due diligence
- Platform design
- Integration design
- Migration planning
- +2
How it goes
You should know what happens next at every step
- 01
Conversation
A free 30-minute call. You describe the situation, and I ask the questions that usually turn out to matter. If I don’t think I’m the right fit, I’d rather say so on that call than take the work — and I’ll point you somewhere better if I can.
- 02
Assessment
A short engagement, usually a fixed fee, to look at what you actually have. You end up with a written findings document and a prioritized list of recommendations. It’s yours to keep and act on, with or without me.
- 03
Execution
I’d rather settle scope, sequence and price before work starts than discover them along the way. Work happens in visible increments, so you can see where things are and change direction without losing what you’ve already paid for.
- 04
Handoff
Documentation, runbooks, and as many screen-share calls as your team needs — over Teams, Slack or Zoom, whichever you already live in. I lean harder on the written material than the meetings, because notes survive and a session on a Tuesday afternoon mostly doesn’t. The measure of a good engagement is that you don’t need me afterward — and call me anyway, because you want to.
Working together
Three ways to engage
Whichever shape fits, I’d rather you know the price before you commit than discover it as we go.
Assessment
Usually fixed feeA defined review of one area — infrastructure, security posture, an application, or an architecture decision. It ends in a written report with prioritized findings.
You suspect something is wrong but want it named precisely before spending on a fix.
Project
Scoped & quotedA defined build or migration with agreed deliverables and milestones, quoted up front wherever the shape of the work allows it.
You know what you need built and want a predictable path to it.
Retainer
MonthlyOngoing access to a senior engineer: a standing block of hours for advisory, review, escalation, and steady improvement work.
You want senior judgment available continuously, without a full-time hire.
Tell me what is broken.
Or what you’re about to build, or the decision you keep going back and forth on. A 30-minute call costs nothing, and you’ll come away with a straight answer either way.