When to call me

You should call me when:

• Spark jobs are too slow, unstable or expensive
• Kafka pipelines are lossy, slow or hard to operate at scale
• Your data platform is blocking AI or analytics initiatives
• Kubernetes / object storage / private cloud migration is becoming messy
• Ceph, MinIO, Cassandra or storage layers create latency or reliability issues
• Infrastructure costs are rising and nobody can explain why
• Your team needs an independent architecture review before a costly decision

What I deliver

Expert Call — €250 HT / 1h

A focused video session to unblock one architecture, performance, scalability or cost issue.

Best for: validating a technical direction; challenging an architecture proposal; identifying next actions on a painful issue; getting an external read before a larger decision.

Flash Architecture Review — From €4,500 HT

A focused review of one critical technical decision, one bottleneck or one system component.

Typical scope: architecture review; technical interviews; metrics, logs or configuration review when available; written diagnosis; prioritized recommendations; restitution call with CTO / tech lead / platform team.

Platform Sizing — From €4,500 HT

A focused engagement to size or right-size a data infrastructure platform — for a new deployment, a capacity uplift, a migration, or a re-platforming decision.

Typical scope: target workload analysis; sizing of compute, storage and network for Spark, Kafka, Ceph/MinIO, Cassandra/ScyllaDB or Kubernetes clusters; capacity headroom recommendations; cost estimate against the chosen infrastructure (private cloud / on-prem / public cloud); written sizing document and restitution call.

Data Platform Performance Audit — From €7,500 HT

Typical range: €7,500–€15,000 HT depending on scope, urgency and system complexity.

A deeper audit for complex data, cloud or AI platforms where performance, reliability or scalability issues have business impact.

Typical deliverables: architecture map; bottleneck analysis; reliability and scalability risks; infrastructure cost and capacity insights; quick wins; prioritized roadmap; executive restitution for CTO / VP Engineering / Head of Platform.

Fractional Performance Advisor — From €3,000 HT / month

Ongoing senior guidance for teams operating complex data infrastructure.

Best for teams that need a few hours per month of independent senior review, architecture challenge, incident analysis or roadmap support — without hiring a full-time principal engineer.

Who this is for / who this isn’t for

This is for: CTOs, Heads of Platform, VP Engineering, Heads of Data and engineering teams operating production data, cloud or AI infrastructure where performance, reliability, scalability or cost has measurable business impact.

This is not for: teams that need staff augmentation, single-contributor freelance work, generic cloud strategy, or projects under €5k of scope. If you need fewer than 5 days of focused work, the Expert Call is the right entry point.

Selected client work

A non-exhaustive list of past engagements. Some clients are named with their permission; others are anonymized.

• BPCE-IT — Cassandra performance and reliability work supporting an API Management platform. “His expertise and skills have helped improve the performance and behavior of our platforms.”
• Multi-petabyte private cloud data lake — independent audit of a large on-premise data lake supporting analytics and AI workloads
• MinIO and Ceph at scale — performance and observability work on production object storage
• Spark on Kubernetes — performance and reliability engineering on private-cloud Spark platforms
• Geospatial / satellite imagery pipelines — data infrastructure design for high-volume image processing

References available on request under NDA.

Why me

I combine PhD-level numerical optimization, HPC background and 15+ years of hands-on production experience in distributed systems, data platforms and private cloud.

I have worked on multi-petabyte data lakes, Spark on Kubernetes, Ceph/MinIO object storage, Cassandra/ScyllaDB, satellite imagery pipelines, banking infrastructure, telecom and aerospace systems.

I do not sell generic cloud advice. I help teams make better technical decisions when systems become too slow, too costly, too fragile or too complex to reason about internally.

Typical outcomes

Depending on context, clients use the audit to:

• Reduce processing time
• Lower infrastructure cost
• Identify storage or compute bottlenecks
• De-risk a migration
• Improve production reliability
• Challenge vendor or integrator recommendations
• Prioritize engineering work
• Avoid over-engineering and unnecessary cloud spend

How it works

1. Scope — Clarify the issue, system boundaries, urgency and expected business impact.
2. Diagnose — Review architecture, metrics, configuration, incidents, team hypotheses and constraints.
3. Prioritize — Identify bottlenecks, risks, quick wins and high-ROI fixes.
4. Restitution — Deliver a clear written diagnosis and a prioritized technical roadmap.

FAQ

Do you need production access?

Usually no. Metrics, architecture diagrams, configuration excerpts and technical interviews are often enough to start.

Can this be done remotely?

Yes. Most audits are remote-first.

Is this only for large companies?

No, but the issue must be costly enough to justify a premium audit.

Can you help implement the recommendations?

Yes, but the audit is designed to stand alone. Implementation can be scoped separately.

Why not just hire a freelance for a few months?

Because you may not need more hands. You may need an independent diagnosis before spending months in the wrong direction.