02 / FINOPS, CLOUD & OPERATIONS
FinOps and more resilient cloud operations
Working across engineering and operations to reduce Azure costs, shorten provisioning and improve service recovery.
The shared challenge
The teams were operating established products while improving the cloud estate around them. Cost, environment provisioning and service recovery all needed attention, alongside compatibility, security and day-to-day delivery.
This work spanned separate initiatives during my architecture and subsequent engineering leadership roles.
Where I fitted in
As Senior Architect, I led migration planning and Azure, .NET and SQL Server design across three products, working directly with developers from early options through implementation.
As Senior Manager, Engineering, my focus included Azure cost optimisation, platform observability and clearer ownership of production services. The work depended on engineering teams understanding both the changes and their operational consequences.
What we improved together
The migration and provisioning work reduced hosting costs and brought environment provisioning from days to hours.
The FinOps work addressed backups, resource sizing and infrastructure retirement, producing substantial recurring Azure savings. Decisions balanced operating costs with security and reliability.
Improvements to observability, incident detection and response significantly reduced average recovery time. Clearer team ownership connected those improvements to the people running the services.
What carried forward
The lasting value was the combination of a more efficient cloud estate, better operational visibility and teams with clearer responsibility for their services.
That is the standard I aim for: improvements that become part of how the teams operate, with the ability to manage costs and recover services continuing beyond my involvement.