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

Picking the wrong engagement model wastes more money than picking the wrong vendor inside the right model. This comparison is for a CTO or founder choosing between an AWS consultancy, an independent senior architect like me, and a full-time hire. You get a side-by-side table, the conditions that make each option the right call, and the cases where you should not hire me.

The mistake cuts both ways. 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.

The three ways to get AWS architecture help

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

1. AWS consulting partner or firm: staffed team, longer engagements, formal statement of work (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.

Consultancy, solo architect and full-time hire side by side

When a consultancy is the right call

• Migration of 50+ services across multiple regions with strict deadline
• You want a large migration run through the Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), which AWS delivers with Professional Services and Migration Competency Partners
• 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 will refer you to firms I respect and am 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 and Amazon 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. Trade-offs 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 to hire a full-time engineer instead

• You need ongoing architecture ownership rather than 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 rather than 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.

The three engagement shapes I offer

What each engagement costs

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

• Production review (10 business days):from $2,000
• 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.

My own estimate against typical consultancy engagements of similar scope: 30-60% cheaper, a 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 is long-term self-interest, and I would rather say so.