DevOps Consultant
Freelance DevOps consulting for teams that want to ship more often, with fewer incidents and without depending on a single person.
The problem I usually find
The request almost always arrives the same way: releases are frightening. They pile up for weeks, they need an agreed window, they involve the one person who “knows how it works”, and every so often something breaks in production without anyone being able to say why.
Underneath that surface the causes are remarkably consistent. Test environments do not resemble production, so problems surface late. Infrastructure was built by hand over time and nobody can rebuild it. Pipelines exist but they are slow and unreliable, and the team has learned to re-run them until they pass. Secrets are scattered across environment variables and config files.
None of these are tooling problems. They are process problems, and tools alone do not solve them.
How I work
I always start with a DevOps maturity assessment, because installing tooling before understanding how a team works is the fastest way to add complexity nobody asked for. I look at the real path a change takes from commit to production, use the DORA metrics to measure where time is lost and where incidents originate, and turn that into a list of interventions ordered by impact against effort.
From there the work is incremental. Continuous integration comes first, because a pipeline the team does not trust makes everything else pointless. Then infrastructure comes under control with Terraform, so environments are rebuildable and comparable. Finally delivery gets automated, typically with a GitOps approach where the desired state of the system lives in Git and reconciliation is continuous.
The last phase is the one that matters most a year later: knowledge transfer. Documented decisions, runbooks for recurring operations, working sessions with the team. A successful DevOps engagement is one after which the client no longer needs the consultant.
The experience behind it
I have worked on these problems since 2018, first as a DevOps Engineer, then as a Cloud Native Engineering Manager, and today as an independent consultant. The sectors where I have the deepest experience are Fintech, Insurtech and industrial: contexts where the constraint is not only technical but also about compliance, auditability and service continuity.
That background explains the approach. In a regulated environment it is not enough for a deployment to work. It has to be traceable, repeatable, and explainable to whoever audits it.
What's included
- Assessment of current delivery and operations, with a reasoned order of priorities
- CI/CD pipelines implemented on your stack (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Argo)
- Reusable Terraform modules and a clear environment structure
- Operational runbooks and documented architectural decisions
- Hands-on support for your team throughout adoption
Frequently asked questions
What is DevOps, in practice?
A way of working in which development and operations share responsibility for getting software into production and keeping it running, instead of handing it over between departments. In practice it means small and frequent releases, automated CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure described as code and reliability measures the whole team shares.
What does a DevOps consultant actually do?
A DevOps consultant works on how software travels from the repository to production: CI/CD pipeline automation, infrastructure as code, environment standardisation, observability and operational practice. The goal is not to introduce tools but to cut the time and risk of every release, while leaving the internal team able to maintain what was built.
Do you work as a freelancer or through a consultancy?
I work as an independent freelance consultant registered in Italy. That means one technical counterpart who takes part in the implementation rather than only supervising it.
How long does a DevOps consulting engagement last?
It depends on scope. A focused assessment takes a handful of days and produces a prioritised list. A full adoption path, with pipeline implementation and team enablement, runs over several months with verifiable milestones. In both cases the scope is agreed before we start.
What does a DevOps maturity assessment measure?
The real path a change takes from commit to production, using the four DORA metrics (DevOps Research and Assessment, not to be confused with the EU DORA regulation): deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate and failed deployment recovery time. Alongside the numbers I look at pipelines, infrastructure management, secrets, observability and team skills. The output is not a score but a list of interventions ordered by impact and effort.
Do you work remotely or on site?
Mostly remotely, with on-site days available for workshops, design sessions or team training. I work primarily with clients in Italy and the European Union.
Which DevOps technologies do you specialise in?
Kubernetes and the CNCF ecosystem, Terraform for Infrastructure as Code, GitLab CI and GitHub Actions for continuous integration, Argo CD and Argo Workflows for GitOps and automation, HashiCorp Vault for secrets management, Prometheus and Grafana for observability.
How much does a DevOps consultant cost, and how is the work priced?
Two models. A fixed price for work with a defined output, such as an assessment or a migration with a clear perimeter, and a daily rate for longer engagements where the scope evolves with the team. In both cases you receive a written proposal with the deliverables, the estimated effort and what is excluded before anything starts, so the number is comparable with other quotes rather than a surprise on the first invoice.
Should we hire a DevOps engineer or bring in a consultant?
Hire when the work is continuous and specific to your product: someone has to own the platform day after day. Bring in a consultant when the problem is a transition that ends, such as setting up the delivery pipeline, migrating to Kubernetes or preparing for a regulation, or when you need a second opinion on choices already made. The two often combine: I set up the practice and the pipelines, then hand them over to the person you hire, who inherits documentation and a working system rather than a blank page.
