Releases that need a brave volunteer
Deploying means one person running commands from their laptop, in an order only they remember. So releases get bundled up, delayed and saved for quiet days — which makes each one riskier.
Scale and improve
Cloud & DevOps consulting, so you can ship on a Friday without flinching.
Cloud architecture on AWS and Azure, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code and monitoring — set up so releases are routine, alerts tell you when something breaks, and the monthly bill makes sense. Everything lives in your own accounts, written down, so your team can run it.
Sound familiar?
The problems this solves.
A cloud account nobody fully understands
Servers were clicked into existence over the years. Nobody is sure which ones matter, what they cost, or how to rebuild them if something breaks.
Hearing about outages from customers
The first sign of trouble is an email from a customer. The logs are somewhere, but there are no alerts and no quick way to see what changed.
A bill that only goes up
The cloud invoice grows faster than your usage, and nobody can say which service, environment or forgotten test machine is behind it.
What you get
Concrete things, not adjectives.
An architecture, and a migration plan
A design for AWS or Azure sized to the traffic you have and the growth you expect, with separate test and production environments. Moving from older hosting? A step-by-step plan with a way back at every stage.
Infrastructure as code
Servers, databases, networks and permissions defined in Terraform and kept in your repository. Changes are reviewed like any other code, and the infrastructure for an environment can be recreated from that code rather than from memory.
A CI/CD pipeline
Every change is built, tested and checked automatically before it goes anywhere. Deploying becomes a merge rather than a ritual, and rolling back is a known, tested step rather than a scramble.
Containers, where they help
Docker so the code runs the same way on a laptop as in production, and Kubernetes when your workload genuinely needs it.
Monitoring and observability
Dashboards for the numbers that matter, alerts that reach the right person, and logs you can search when something goes wrong. Built around the 99.9% uptime we architect for.
Cost visibility
Resources labelled by product and environment, budgets with alerts on spend, and a written review of what can be resized, scheduled or switched off.
How an engagement runs
A demo every two weeks. No six-month silences.
Most projects start with a short, fixed-price discovery and move in two-week sprints you can stop, pause or extend.
From discovery to launch
Weeks 1–2
We learn the game before we play it
What happens
We sit with your users, your constraints and your numbers. Then architecture, scope, and the honest version of what fits your timeline — including the parts we would cut.
What you get
A scoped plan with a real budget, a technical architecture you own, and a working prototype of whichever part carries the most risk.
Fixed priceYours to keepNo obligation to continue
Two-week sprints
A demo at the end of every sprint
What happens
Design and engineering run together rather than in sequence. Every sprint closes with something you can click — never a status report standing in for progress.
What you get
A product growing in front of you, written status every week, and a direct line to the engineers writing the code.
Demo every two weeksYour repository from day oneRe-scope between sprints
Launch and after
We stay on past the launch party
What happens
A security review, a performance pass, and a handover your team can actually act on. Then we watch the first weeks of real traffic alongside you.
What you get
Production infrastructure in your accounts, documentation and training, and a support arrangement sized to your stage.
Security reviewed before launchFull handover and trainingSupport that answers
Expertise
The tools, and who it suits.
Technologies we use
- Cloud platforms
- Infrastructure and delivery
- Containers
- Testing and security
A good fit when
- Releases are slow, manual or nerve-racking, and you want them to be routine.
- You are moving off older hosting, or onto AWS or Azure for the first time.
- Your cloud bill keeps growing and nobody can say why.
- You want your infrastructure written down as code your own team can read and change.
Probably not the right fit when
- You want Kubernetes for its own sake. If a simpler managed service will do the job, we will recommend that instead.
- You have a simple site that a managed hosting platform already runs well. You may not need any of this yet, and we will tell you so.
Questions
Cloud & DevOps: your questions.
Do we need Kubernetes?
Probably not yet. Kubernetes earns its place when you run many services with different scaling needs and have people to look after it. For most early products, containers on a managed cloud service are simpler to run and easier to hand over — and the Docker work carries straight over if you outgrow them.
Should we choose AWS or Azure?
Both are solid choices for most products, so the deciding factors are usually practical. What does your team already know, where does your data need to live, and what do your customers or existing contracts already use? We weigh those during discovery, recommend one, and explain why in plain English.
Can you migrate us from our current hosting?
Yes. We start by mapping what runs today and what depends on it, then move in planned stages with a tested way back at each one. Databases get the most care, because that is where data can be lost. The switch-over is rehearsed first and scheduled for your quietest hours.
Can you reduce our cloud bill?
We won’t promise a figure before we have looked. The first job is making spend visible, so every line of the bill can be traced to a product and an environment. Then we write up the quick wins, such as idle machines, oversized databases and forgotten test environments, and say which bigger changes are worth the effort.
Who owns the infrastructure and the accounts?
You do. Production runs in your own AWS or Azure accounts, and the Terraform code lives in your repository from day one. Handover includes documentation and training, so your team can operate everything without us.
What does “ship on a Friday without flinching” actually mean?
That a release is a routine event, not a gamble. Every change is tested automatically, deployed the same way every time, watched by monitoring, and quick to roll back. When deploying is that dull, the day of the week stops mattering.
Further reading
From Step2Play Insights.
Software architecture
Monolith vs Microservices: What Should a Startup Choose?
Why most startups should begin with a well-structured monolith, the signs it is time to split, and how to keep that door open from day one.
Product development
How Much Does Custom Software Development Cost?
The factors that really drive the cost of custom software, why fixed quotes on vague scopes go wrong, and how a short discovery turns a guess into a budget.
Often paired with
Related services.
Custom Software Development
Platforms built around how your business actually works — not around a template someone else outgrew.
QA & Testing
Automated testing, penetration-test remediation and managed support once you are live.
AI Development
LLM-powered features, data pipelines and workflow automation that answer the question you actually asked.
Get in touch
Tell us what you’re building.
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