safeINIT

How we work with you on AWS

Fixed-scope project, monthly retainer, or one that turns into the other.

Project

Defined scope, defined end.

A clear outcome on a fixed timeline. We turn it into a Statement of Work, ship against milestones, and see you through to go-live. Typically 4–16 weeks, fixed fee. Migrations, builds, audits, and redesigns all fit.

How a project runs

Retainer

A certified AWS expert, reserved for your team.

They learn your stack, stay on it, and you reach them on a cadence your team sets. No re-onboarding when the work picks up. INIT 1 to INIT 5.

How a retainer runs

Project engagements

You arrive with something to ship: a Bedrock RAG, a multi-account redesign, a migration off a legacy provider, a security-baseline hardening pass.

A senior engineer scopes the work and stays accountable through delivery. When it ships, your team owns it, or safeZONE keeps it running.

How a project runs, from the first call to going live.

Thirty minutes on Google Meet with a senior engineer who'd lead the work. Not a discovery call. You bring a problem on AWS, and before the call ends you'll know what it would take to fix it.

If we're the right firm for the work, we'll show you how we'd approach it. If we're not, we'll point you to a firm that is.

Once the project ships, we can keep running it.

Retainer engagements

At some point ending the engagement stops being the goal. You are in AWS every day, the work is recurring (cost optimization, drift response, new services to evaluate), and the cost of re-explaining your stack to a new vendor each quarter is a tax on momentum.

Your retainer engineer already knows your accounts, your guardrails, and the decisions that brought your stack to where it is. Start with a lower tier and move up when the work earns it.

#INIT 1 · 16h / month

Light-touch coverage. AWS is stable; you want a certified expert without hiring a cloud team.

  • Mon–Fri 09:00–18:00 GMT
  • Best-effort response
  • No rollover hours
Popular choice

#INIT 2 · 32h / month

Working presence. Active development that doesn't need full-time engineering.

  • Mon–Fri 09:00–18:00 GMT
  • Best-effort response
  • No rollover hours

#INIT 3 · 64h / month

Daily presence. Scaling AWS continuously, with priority response.

  • Mon–Sun 07:00–21:00 GMT
  • Priority response
  • Rollover hours

#INIT 5 · 128h / month

Embedded. Engineering capacity inside your team, available daily.

  • Mon–Sun 07:00–21:00 GMT
  • Priority response
  • Rollover hours

Switch tiers monthly. 3-month minimum on the first engagement. Hours cover any AWS work your engineer handles.

The questions teams ask before they book the call.

Yes. The common path is project first (we ship something), retainer after (we keep it tuned). Going the other way works too: retainer engagements regularly spin off scoped projects when something larger needs to ship. You don't pre-commit. The shape changes when the work changes.

If the work fits, the next step is the call.

If not yet, the case studies are the next-best read.

Book an architecture callSee the case studies