Terraform Consulting

Terraform consulting for startups: codify the infrastructure that currently lives in consoles and one engineer's head. Reproducible environments, reviewable changes, secure state, and a CI/CD pipeline that plans before it applies. Works with existing infrastructure via import; Terraform and OpenTofu.

Import and state foundations inside the first 2 weeks. Pipeline, scanning and drift detection over weeks 3-4. Available as a fixed-scope engagement or inside the fractional retainer.

The Problem

Most startup infrastructure starts as console clicks, and it works until it does not: environments drift apart, nobody can rebuild staging, a security review asks how changes are approved and the honest answer is 'someone clicks carefully'. The fix everyone knows (infrastructure as code) stalls because the team is shipping product and the one attempt at Terraform ended with a scary state file in a laptop folder. Meanwhile every hire, every audit and every incident costs more because the infrastructure only exists as a running instance, not as reviewable code.

Who This Is For

Startups and small engineering teams, funded or bootstrapped, on AWS, GCP or Azure, whose infrastructure is partly or wholly unmanaged by code: click-ops consoles, a half-adopted Terraform repo nobody trusts, or IaC that one departed engineer wrote and nobody dares touch. Also teams facing a compliance push, since reviewable infrastructure changes are what SOC 2 and ISO 27001 change-management controls actually want.

Typical Outcomes

Infrastructure that exists as reviewable code, not tribal knowledge
Change management that satisfies SOC 2 / ISO 27001 auditors because it is real, not documented theatre
Environments that can be rebuilt, which is most of disaster recovery
A team that owns its Terraform instead of fearing it

Timeline Options

Weeks 1-2

  • Existing infrastructure imported to state
  • Remote backend with encryption and locking
  • Module skeleton agreed with your team
Most Popular

Weeks 3-4

  • Plan-before-apply pipeline live on pull requests
  • IaC security scanning gating merges
  • Drift detection scheduled and alerting

Ongoing (optional)

  • Terraform ownership inside the fractional retainer
  • Module evolution as the product grows
  • Compliance evidence generated from the pipeline itself

This might not be a fit if...

  • You want Terraform certification training for engineers; this is a delivery service for companies
  • You want an approval stamp on an existing setup without changes; we review honestly or not at all
  • You need a dedicated multi-cloud platform team embedded full time; that is a hiring project, and we can tell you what to hire for

What You Get

Import of existing infrastructure into Terraform state: what you run today becomes code without rebuilding it
Module structure a small team can maintain: environments composed from modules, no copy-paste stacks
Remote state done properly: encrypted backend, locking, access-controlled, never in a laptop folder or a repo
Plan-before-apply CI/CD: every infrastructure change reviewed as a pull request with its plan attached
IaC security scanning wired into the pipeline (tfsec / Checkov class tooling), so misconfigurations are caught at review, not in production
Drift detection: scheduled plans that tell you when reality and code disagree
Handover documentation and a working session with your team, because the goal is your team owning it

The Transformation

Before

  • Environments built by hand, each one slightly different
  • Infrastructure changes made in consoles, unreviewed and unrecorded
  • State files (if any) in laptop folders with no locking
  • Rebuilding an environment is a multi-day archaeology project

After

  • Environments are reproducible from code, on demand
  • Every change is a reviewed pull request with a plan attached
  • State is remote, encrypted, locked, and access-controlled
  • A new environment is a plan and an apply, not a project

Engagement Models

Project-based

Fixed scope, fixed timeline, fixed price. Ideal for specific security initiatives.

Retainer

Ongoing support with priority response. Perfect for continuous security needs.

What influences pricing?

  • Team size and environment complexity
  • Timeline and urgency requirements
  • Scope of systems and platforms
  • Ongoing support and maintenance needs
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