Working with me vs hiring an AWS consultancy: an honest comparison

I'm going to lose this comparison sometimes. That's the point. The wrong engagement model wastes more money than the wrong vendor inside the right model. A CTO who picks an AWS consultancy when they needed a 2-week review will spend $200K and 4 months to learn what a $30K engagement could have told them in 3 weeks. A CTO who picks a solo architect when they needed 10 engineers in 5 regions will fail differently, and worse.

Below is the honest map. Where solo work like mine fits. Where it doesn't. What you give up either way.

An honest frame, not a sales pitch

There are three real options when you need AWS architecture help:

1. AWS consulting partner / firm: staffed team, longer engagements, formal SOW
2. Independent senior architect (my model): direct work, short engagements, single decision-maker
3. Full-time hire: staff/principal engineer joining your team

Each option exists because it's the right answer for some shape of problem. None is universally better.

Side-by-side

When a consultancy is the right call

• Migration of 50+ services across multiple regions with strict deadline
• You need AWS funding programs (MAP, OLA) that require a Partner
• You need ongoing managed services with SLA commitments
• Compliance program where the auditor expects a named firm on the contract
• Your CTO wants accountability that survives a single person leaving

For these, hire a partner. I'll refer you to firms I respect, happy to make the intro.

When working with me makes sense

• "The AWS bill is climbing and nobody knows why." 2-4 weeks to diagnose. Concrete fix plan. No 60-page deck.
• "Our GenAI demo worked, real users don't." RAG / Bedrock production hardening. Cost ceilings. Retrieval quality.
• "Every deploy feels risky." Rollback design + observability + CI hardening. 4-8 weeks.
• "Should we use Step Functions or chain Lambdas?" Architecture-decision review. 1-2 weeks. Tradeoffs documented.
• "We're about to sign a $300K consultancy SOW." Independent second opinion before you sign. 1 week. Sanity check.

These are the shapes I run cleanly. Direct work, short engagement, clear deliverable.

When you should just hire an FTE

• You need ongoing architecture ownership, not a project
• The work spans 12+ months continuously
• You have no senior engineer on staff and need one to own production
• The role is a core competency for your business, not a one-time intervention

Don't burn money on a consultancy or a series of solo engagements when what you actually need is to hire a staff engineer. I'll tell you if that's what you need.

Engagement shapes I run

What it actually costs

I quote per engagement, not per hour. Rough bands:

• Production review (2-3 weeks): $15-30K
• Review + fix oversight (4-8 weeks): $30-70K
• Architecture sparring (8-12 weeks): $40-90K

Variation is based on stack complexity, account count, compliance scope, and how many teams I need to align with. Quoted upfront. No surprise expansions mid-engagement.

Compared to typical consultancy engagements of similar scope: 30-60% cheaper, 2-3x faster start, and you talk to me directly the entire time.

One disclosure: if a partner firm is a better fit, I will tell you in the first call. I'd rather refer you and stay in your contact list than take an engagement that won't work. That's long-term-selfish, not selfless.