Independent FinOps Consultant

Independent FinOps consultant. AWS, GCP, Azure cloud cost optimization on a pay-for-savings model. 15+ years engineering experience. Cut bills 30-90% in 30-60 days.

What does a FinOps consultant actually do?

A FinOps consultant audits your cloud spend, identifies waste, and implements the cuts. The good ones go further — they translate the work into your team's language, leave runbooks behind so the savings stick, and align engineering incentives with cost outcomes. An independent FinOps consultant isn't tied to a SaaS platform, doesn't push a tool, and bills on outcome rather than seat-licence. The fee on a pay-for-savings model is a fixed percentage of the verified monthly reduction your team sees on the invoice — capped at 12 months, zero if no reduction is delivered.

Why independent FinOps consulting beats a SaaS-backed one

  • No tool to sell — recommendations driven by your bill, not vendor product tier.
  • Pay-for-savings — fee is a fraction of the reduction. Zero upfront. Zero if no savings land.
  • Hands-on engineering — pull requests, not slide decks. 15+ years of CTO and senior-engineer work behind every change.
  • Multi-cloud, no preference — AWS, GCP, Azure equally.
  • Runbooks left behind — savings stay locked in after engagement.
  • Founder economics — I've been the CTO during a runway crisis.

Engineer first, FinOps second

15+ years of building and running cloud-native systems before specialising in cost. CTO at multiple startups. Founding engineer at Hero Labs (Red Dot Award, IoT Breakthrough 2020). National Insurance Awards 2023 winner (Home Insurance, Locket). £1m+ raised on SEEDRS.

That background matters because cloud cost optimization isn't a spreadsheet exercise. The cuts that move the bill are architectural — concurrency models on Lambda, partition keys on BigQuery, IOPS provisioning on RDS, NAT egress paths on AWS. You can't recommend them without having shipped them.

Frequently asked questions

Are you a certified FinOps practitioner?

I work to the FinOps Foundation framework but my engagements deliver implementation, not certification badges. Most clients care about the bill going down, not which logo is on LinkedIn. Happy to discuss credentials on a call if it matters for your procurement.

How do you compare to a FinOps SaaS like Vantage, Cloudability or Apptio?

SaaS tools sell visibility. They surface recommendations and leave your team to implement. An independent FinOps consultant does the implementation. SaaS pricing scales with cloud spend or seats regardless of outcome. My fee is zero unless savings land.

What size of cloud spend makes this worthwhile?

Engagements pay back fastest above $5k/month in cloud spend. Below that the fee floor barely moves the needle. Above $50k/month the percentage cuts get large enough that even a 30% reduction matters more than the engagement fee by 10x.

Do you offer ongoing FinOps governance?

Yes — Tier 3 is a quarterly tune-up after a successful initial engagement. Catches drift, picks up new platform features, re-models reservations. Same pay-for-savings model, fresh 12-month cap per quarterly cycle.

What clouds do you cover?

AWS, GCP, Azure plus BigQuery, Firebase, Datadog, MongoDB Atlas, RDS, PostgreSQL, Redis, Cloudflare and Vercel. Most engagements span 2-3 clouds. Waste hides in the boundaries between them.