Cluster architecture
Control plane choices, node groups, autoscaling, workload separation, and an environment strategy that matches how you ship, designed around the workloads you actually run.
Services
Kubernetes Platform Buildout
You need more than a cluster: teams need a usable platform with the defaults, services, and guardrails already in place.
A production-ready Kubernetes platform with the control plane, core services, guardrails, and Git-owned configuration needed before teams ship into it.
A cluster is only the starting point. The platform is the layer around it: ingress, DNS, certificates, secrets, autoscaling, access, dashboards, policy, and the repository structure that owns it all. We build that as one system, with enough documentation and operating context for your team to keep it healthy.
Scope
Where the work has to hold.
Every engagement is scoped to the pressure in front of you. These are the areas we usually need to make reliable for the change to stick.
Core platform services
Ingress, ExternalDNS, cert-manager, External Secrets, and the observability agents every workload needs, installed and configured as one system rather than a pile of Helm releases.
Operating defaults
RBAC, resource quotas, network policies, and pod security standards applied from day one, so guardrails are the starting state instead of a retrofit.
Typical platform
This is the kind of platform shape we typically build before wider delivery and observability work is layered on top. The exact service mix stays adaptable.
Team-owned workloads
Applications ship into known defaults.
IngressSecretsDashboardsAutoscaling
platform baseline
Core services
operating defaults
Platform guardrails
Network Policies
RBAC Defaults
Resource Quotas
Pod Security Standards
control plane and compute
Kubernetes foundation
Engagement shape
From nothing, or from a cluster that grew.
Some platforms start greenfield. Most start as a cluster that worked well enough until it became load-bearing.
New platform buildout
Design and build the platform from scratch: cluster, core services, guardrails, and the Git structure to run it all.
Cluster-to-platform upgrade
Keep the workloads, rebuild the layer around them: core services, defaults, and a configuration model your team can maintain.
Multi-tenant readiness
Prepare the platform for more teams: isolation boundaries, quotas, onboarding paths, and per-team access.
Outcomes we are aiming for
01
A production-ready platform with core services installed and integrated, not a bare cluster
02
Everything in Git: infrastructure, add-ons, and configuration reproducible from a clean checkout
03
RBAC, quotas, network policies, and pod security set before the first tenant, not after the first incident
From the blog
See how we think before you talk to us.
Deep dives from the engineering blog covering the tools and patterns this service is built on.
Kubernetes
EKS node autoscaling with Karpenter, without node groups
Karpenter changes EKS node autoscaling by launching right-sized EC2 nodes from pending pods, then consolidating and replacing them as the fleet drifts.
12 min read
Security
Syncing secrets into Kubernetes with External Secrets
Use External Secrets Operator to sync AWS Secrets Manager values into Kubernetes with IRSA, sane refresh policies, and less secret material in git.
9 min read
Networking
Kubernetes networking with Cilium: eBPF and kube-proxy
Cilium changes Kubernetes networking by replacing more of kube-proxy with eBPF, enforcing identity-aware policy, and adding flow visibility through Hubble.
11 min read
Start with the problem
Bring us the cluster you have, or the one you need.
Describe the workloads, the team, and where the platform is falling short, and we can take it from there.