SRE Build and Consulting Pod
Build the infrastructure foundation that your team has been skipping.
talk to sales
You've been shipping fast. Your infrastructure hasn't kept up.
Most engineering teams reach the same inflection point. The product is working. The team is growing. And then something that shouldn't be a big deal becomes a very big deal, because the infrastructure holding everything up was never designed for where you are now.
- Infrastructure provisioned by hand. No IaC, no version control, no repeatable deployments
- Monitoring that generates noise but not signal. Alerts with no escalation path, no SLO context
- CI/CD pipelines that were bolted on incrementally and nobody fully understands anymore
- No defined SLOs or error budgets, so every incident is a political negotiation, not a measured response
- A compliance audit (SOC 2, ISO 27001) that has surfaced gaps in architecture documentation and access controls
- Senior engineers spending their time on infrastructure toil that should be automated
The instinct is to fix it gradually, squeeze it in between feature sprints, and assign it to whoever has a spare cycle. That approach produces patchy results because no one owns the full picture long enough.
The faster path is a dedicated engagement with Maxima’s SRE pod: full focus, a defined scope, and working deliverables at the end of every month.
What "Built Properly" actually looks like
That's the state a well-scoped SRE build engagement produces. Not a slide deck with recommendations. Not a discovery.
Working assets, code, configuration, and documentation that your team can open, run, modify, and operate the day the engagement closes.
.svg){kind=icon}
Architecture you can trust
An SRE Architect reviews your current state, identifies risk, and designs the target state with decisions documented and rationale explained.
IaC you actually own
Terraform and Ansible modules written to your stack and committed to your repo. No proprietary wrappers. No black boxes you can't modify.
Monitoring tied to what matters
Datadog (or your platform of choice) configured against defined SLOs, not just resource utilization metrics that don't connect to user experience.
SLOs and error budgets that work
Service Level Objectives defined for your critical services, with error budget policy agreed by engineering and product, so reliability decisions have a framework.
Pipelines that are reproducible
CI/CD pipelines rebuilt or refactored to be consistent, tested, and documented so deployments are boring in exactly the right way.
Clean handover, full ownership
All IP, code, config, and documentation transfers to you at close. Structured handover session included. No ongoing dependency on Maxima to operate it.
An architect and an engineer. Focused on one thing.
The pod is deliberately small. Two senior engineers, one setting direction, one building, move faster and produce more coherent output than a larger team negotiating priorities. Every month delivers 1–2 major infrastructure epics as working, committed assets.
Role
What they own
SRE Architect (Lead)
Architecture reviews, SLO and error budget definitions, technical strategy, client communication, epic scoping and acceptance
DevOps / SRE Engineer
Writing Terraform and Ansible, building and refactoring CI/CD pipelines, monitoring configuration (Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana), runbook authoring
$20,000 per month · 2–3 month engagement with a fixed rate, no change orders for agreed scope. The plan can be customized based on your needs.
What a major infrastructure epic looks like in practice
Every engagement is scoped to your situation. These are representative examples of the epics we deliver. Each one a working, committed asset, not a report or a recommendation.
Scoped, delivered, and handed over. Three months, clean close.
The pod runs on a two-week sprint cadence. Each sprint produces working software, not documentation.
Discovery & scope definition
The SRE Architect runs a structured review of your current infrastructure, toolchain, and pain points. You leave with a written scope document with epics prioritized by risk and impact, delivery timeline per month, and acceptance criteria for every major deliverable. No work begins until the scope is signed off.
First Epic delivery
The DevOps/SRE Engineer starts building. Weekly check-ins with your engineering lead. Code committed to your repo incrementally, not delivered as a single drop at the end of the month. Month-end review confirms acceptance of Epic 1 and refines the scope for Month 2 based on what was learned.
Remaining Epics & iIntegration
Subsequent epics are built in the same cadence. Where epics are interdependent (for example, IaC foundation enabling monitoring config) the Architect sequences them to avoid rework. Your engineers are invited to review, contribute, and ask questions throughout. The goal is knowledge transfer, not dependency.
Handover session & full IP transfer
A structured handover session with your engineering team, walkthrough of all deliverables, Q&A, and confirmation that your team can operate what was built. All code, configuration, documentation, and runbooks transfer to you. Maxima retains nothing proprietary. The engagement ends cleanly.
The right trigger for SRE Pod engagement
The SRE Build Pod is a project engagement, not a retainer. It's the right choice when you have a specific infrastructure gap to close and want it done in a defined window, not dragged out across quarters.
You're pre- or post-Series A, and infrastructure is now a board-level concern
Investors ask about reliability. Compliance teams ask about documentation. The informal approach that worked for 20 engineers doesn't hold up at 80.
A compliance audit has exposed gaps you need to close
SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, or a customer security review has flagged infrastructure documentation, access control, or change management gaps. You need fixes, not findings.
You're migrating cloud platforms or re-architecting for scale
A significant infrastructure change is coming. Doing it on top of an unstructured current state multiplies the risk. A clean SRE foundation before the migration makes everything that follows cheaper.
You want to hand off to a managed service after the build
The SRE Build Pod pairs naturally with the Managed Service Pod. Build the foundation properly, then hand it to a dedicated ops team to run, without the build team having to stay on indefinitely to maintain what they created.
140+
Enterprise applications maintained in production during a Tier-1 insurer's large-scale modernization program.
90 days
Typical engagement window from first architecture review to final handover, with working deliverables every month.
CMMI 3
Process maturity certification, the foundation for consistent, auditable delivery that compliance requirements demand.
0
Proprietary platforms or tools required, all deliverables use your existing stack and live in your own repositories
Senior SRE practitioners. Not junior consultants with a checklist.
Our SRE Architects have operated production infrastructure at enterprise scale, not just designed it. That gap between theory and practice is where most consulting engagements fail.
Frequently asked questions
Ready to build the SRE foundation properly?
If your infrastructure is outpacing your ability to operate it reliably, book a 30-minute architecture review call. We'll map the gaps, propose an epic scope, and give you a clear picture of what 90 days looks like.