Consultation 01
Backend Architecture Review
A structured examination of service boundaries, data ownership, failure paths, and operational readiness before a rewrite, release, or scale event.
Who this is for
Engineering leads and staff engineers who own a backend that has outgrown its original shape — multiple services sharing a database, unclear ownership of events, or a release that depends on unspoken assumptions about retries and consistency.
What you receive
- A written findings report with severity labels and suggested owners
- A boundary map of services, stores, and message flows as we observed them
- A short decision backlog ordered by blast radius, not alphabetically
- A closing session to walk maintainers through the highest-risk items
What is included
Document and repository intake, two to four deep-dive sessions with your maintainers, asynchronous clarification over a shared channel for the engagement window, and the final report within five business days of the last session.
What is excluded
Hands-on implementation, on-call coverage, hiring decisions, and ongoing product management. We advise; your team ships.
Process
- Intake — You share diagrams, ADRs, runbooks, and access notes. We propose a session agenda within two business days.
- Examination — We walk critical paths: write paths, idempotency keys, auth boundaries, and recovery from partial failure.
- Synthesis — Findings are drafted, challenged internally, and delivered as a single coherent brief.
- Handoff — A live walkthrough so owners leave with named next steps.
Duration and delivery
Most engagements fit three to five working days of calendar time, depending on system size and how quickly documents arrive. Sessions may be remote or held at our Taipei office / your site by arrangement.
Preparation
Appoint a single point of contact who can schedule maintainers, grant read access to relevant repos, and confirm which environments are in scope. Redact secrets; we do not need production credentials.
Constraints
We work in English. We focus on backend and API architecture — front-end product UX is out of scope unless it directly shapes contract design. Availability fills weeks in advance during release seasons.
Pricing basis
Quoted as a fixed engagement fee after intake, based on number of services in scope and session count. See Rates for current starting figures.
Next step
Request a review intake and name the system under pressure. We will reply with availability and a proposed agenda.