Service Terraform platform engineering · IaC + GitOps + state management · UK

Terraform platform engineering for the team that runs prod. on click-ops + Slack approvals.

Terraform platform engineering for UK SaaS and regulated industries. IaC modules, multi-environment, state management, Terragrunt, Atlantis, Spacelift, policy-as-code with OPA, GitOps — reviewable, auditable, reproducible infrastructure your CTO and your auditor both trust.

Send a 5-line brief Back to engineering
24hreply, from a senior
100+projects shipped since 2019
Senioronly, on the spine
Why CTOs sign with us

You need Terraform platform engineering. We ship it with senior engineers and the receipts your acquirer asks for.

Click-ops is fine until the day a workflow dies silently, the audit log doesn’t exist, and your acquirer’s CTO asks to walk the estate. We replace it with infrastructure you can review, rerun, and defend.

“We replace click-ops with infrastructure you can review, rerun, and defend.”

IaC-first since 2019

Senior engineers, paired daily

001

0

Terraform engagements shipped since 2019.

002

0

Production incidents on shipped engagements.

003

5 day

Fixed-scope audit. 30-page brief. Six ADRs. Fixed-price quote.

The CTO this page is for“rip + replace or 25% haircut” · retention signed

A scale-up tried it in-house. The product was good. The platform wouldn’t survive diligence.

01

A UK SaaS scale-up signed us for Terraform platform engineering after six months of in-house attempt. The attempt was two engineers part-time, no observability, no audit log, and a Confluence page with the runbook. The acquirer’s CTO walked the codebase pre-LOI and said: “rip and replace, or a 25% diligence haircut.”

02

We rebuilt over 10 to 14 weeks. Senior engineers paired daily. ADRs documented same day. The evidence pipeline was wired on Day 1, not bolted on at the end. Nothing shipped that the acquirer’s CTO couldn’t walk and verify.

03

The acquirer’s CTO came back to the diligence call, walked the same surface, and signed retention. Full team kept. Deal closed at ask. This page is for the CTO who decided the platform is the product floor, and wants it built by senior engineers, not bought as a tool.

IaC-first since 2019
The eight platform pains we hear in every audit call

The pain. The day-1 architecture answer.

Each one is the difference between a platform your team trusts and one your customer finds broken first.

  1. 01
    The silent failureDay-1 architecture

    “A workflow died silently. The customer found out first.”

    Per-workflow observability, wired to alerts. PagerDuty plus Slack on every workflow. The customer never finds out first again.

  2. 02
    The audit log gapDay-1 architecture

    “Who did what, when? No record. The SOC 2 auditor flagged it.”

    Audit log per mutation, tenant-admin viewable. Every mutation logged. The auditor is satisfied, the regulator request is answerable.

  3. 03
    The cost spiralDay-1 architecture

    “The cloud bill spiked. Nobody knew why.”

    Per-workload cost tags plus budget alerts. Spend attributed to a workload. The bill stabilises within 30 days, and stays stable.

  4. 04
    The untested restoreDay-1 architecture

    “The backup runs. The restore was never tested. A disaster would be career-ending.”

    DR drill on the calendar. RTO and RPO documented and tested. Restore rehearsed quarterly, in under four hours.

  5. 05
    The single point of failureDay-1 architecture

    “One engineer knows the system. Bus factor: 1.”

    Two-senior pairing plus same-day ADRs. Two senior engineers paired daily, decisions written down. Bus factor: 4.

  6. 06
    The procurement bounceDay-1 architecture

    “An enterprise prospect asked for SOC 2, a DPA, a sub-processor list. We had none.”

    Procurement pack on Day 1. SIG-Lite, CAIQ, DPA, SCCs and a SOC 2 stance shipped from the start. Procurement clears in days.

  7. 07
    The regulator requestDay-1 architecture

    “The ICO, FCA or SRA asked for a record. We couldn’t produce it inside 30 days.”

    DSAR runbook plus audit log export. The 30-day deadline becomes defendable. The record is one query away.

  8. 08
    The observability gapDay-1 architecture

    “A production incident hits. On-call doesn’t know what happened.”

    Trace IDs end-to-end plus structured logs. On-call reads the trace and knows what happened in 60 seconds, not 60 minutes.

WHAT SHIPS AT EVERY HANDOVER

Procurement, security and trust, in writing

Every engagement carries the same pack. You don’t negotiate for it. It ships by default.

01

SOC 2 Type II stance

Vanta or Drata evidence pipeline wired Day 1. SOC 2 Type 1 achievable in 8 to 12 weeks if you don’t already hold it.

02

Signed DPA plus SCCs

UK and EU GDPR-aware Data Processing Agreement on file. Standard Contractual Clauses for cross-border. Sub-processor list versioned.

03

DSAR runbook plus erasure

A 30-day DSAR response that’s defendable. Right-to-erasure honoured at the schema. ICO audit-defendable where it applies.

04

Idempotent and reproducible

Every workflow reruns cleanly, state recoverable, DR rehearsed quarterly. Nothing depends on one person’s memory.

05

30-day walk-away both ways

You keep everything. IP assigns on every commit. No lock-in, no deposit forfeiture. Two handovers in seven years, both inside 48 hours.

06

Procurement security pack

SIG-Lite and CAIQ pre-filled. Pen-test report. Architecture diagram. Backup and DR plan. SLA and uptime SLO. Vendor review clears in days.

Default platform stack · Terraform + AWS + GitOps

The default stack we ship every engagement on.

Terraform as the source of truth. GitOps as the workflow. The infrastructure that signals senior engineering depth to your next hire and your acquirer.

T1

What we build every platform on

IaC-first
TerraformTerragruntAtlantisSpaceliftOPA (policy-as-code)GitHub ActionsVaultDatadog APMOpenTelemetryPagerDutySentryVanta / Drata
T2

When your brief calls for it

reach when needed
Kafka / ConfluentRedisSnowflake / BigQueryStripeClerk / Auth0 / WorkOSLaunchDarkly
T3

The infrastructure for scale

AWS-default
AWSRDS / AuroraLambdaECS FargateKubernetes (EKS)S3 + CloudFrontAWS KMSAWS BackupCloudWatch + GuardDutyCost ExplorerSecrets ManagerEventBridge
THE DILIGENCE CALL

From “rip and replace” to retention signed

What changes when the platform is built as the product floor, not patched as a side quest.

12 wk In-house estate to acquirer-defendable
A UK SaaS scale-up Full team retained
Senior engineers paired daily, ADRs same-day, the evidence pipeline wired on Day 1, not bolted on at the end.
01 / 02
Results

In-house to acquirer-defendable,
in 12 weeks, in numbers

We rebuilt the platform after an acquirer-CTO diligence threat. Twelve-week sprint, senior pairing, ADRs same-day, evidence pipeline Day 1. The acquirer signed retention pre-close.

Diligence

12 wk
In-house to defendable
Full
Team retention signed

Compliance

9 wk
SOC 2 Type 1 achieved
Day 1
Evidence pipeline live

Track record

24
Engagements since 2019
0
Production incidents shipped
How an engagement starts

Two phases. Audit, then sprint.

The honest order. We bound the risk in week one, before any code ships.

01£8,000 fixed (GBP)

5-day audit

Two senior engineers read your existing estate and brief, then write it down.

  • 30-page written brief
  • Six architecture decision records
  • Risk matrix, ranked by severity
  • Fixed-price quote for the sprint
02From £35,000 fixed (GBP)

Platform sprint

8 to 14 weeks of fixed-scope shipping. Audit-led, evidence-first, observable.

  • Senior engineers paired daily
  • Evidence pipeline wired Day 1
  • Multi-cloud comfortable, AWS-default
  • Walk away inside 30 days, both ways
03From £5,000 / month (GBP)

Post-build retainer

One day a week of a senior engineer for 3 to 6 months. Optional, never assumed.

  • Performance and observability work
  • New surface as you grow
  • Your team gets unblocked
  • No lock-in, cancel cleanly
Terraform platform engineering · honest answers

What CTOs actually ask before signing

Pain-first, soft-second.

The audit is £8K, fixed. The sprint is typically £25K to £75K, fixed-price, scoped at the audit. No day-rate, no scope creep. You decide whether to continue after week one, so your risk is bounded to the audit.

No. We work in place where we can. Any migration is scoped at the audit if you want it. Old and new run in parallel until you sign off. Nothing gets ripped out without a tested path back.

An ADR pack, an audit log, an evidence pipeline, and a SOC 2 Type II stance. Your acquirer’s CTO walks the surface and signs full-team retention. We did exactly that three times across 2024 and 2025.

Yes. AWS by default. We’ve shipped Terraform platform engineering on GCP, Azure, Cloudflare, DigitalOcean, Vercel and Fly.io. The multi-cloud lock-in path is documented so a future decision isn’t a trap.

A Vanta evidence pipeline from Day 1. SOC 2 Type 1 achievable in 8 to 12 weeks. A signed DPA plus SCCs. A DSAR runbook and an erasure tool. Procurement clears in days, not months.

30-day walk-away both ways, no deposit forfeiture. The £8K audit is the most you’re ever at risk before you see the brief and the quote. UK VAT registered, listed on Companies House, shipping since 2019.

Every engagement has two senior engineers paired, not one. Every decision goes into an ADR the same day. Bus factor: 4. Two handovers in seven years, both inside 48 hours. 96% engineer retention.

Yes, with 14 days’ notice. Engineers move to other work, spend pauses, and you resume with 14 days’ notice. No cancellation fee. We’d rather you came back than felt trapped.

Terraform platform engineering — workflow / interface
In context

See it in context.

A look at the kind of terraform platform engineering surface we hand over — real screens, real data, documented and yours from day one.

A platform plan you can take to your board

Two senior engineers. Five days. That’s the start.

Send a 5-line brief: your current estate, your deadline, your target outcome. Mohit replies inside 24 hours with availability and the next audit slot. A clear yes, a clear no, or the one question that decides it.

Write to mohit@empyrealinfotech.com Replies in 24hSenior-only5-day audit £8K
What happens after the email lands
  1. < 24h

    A personal reply.

    Yes, no, or the deciding question. Straight to your inbox, from Mohit.

  2. Day 5

    Audit in your hands.

    A 30-page brief, six ADRs, a risk matrix, and a fixed-price quote.

  3. Wk 8–14

    A defensible platform.

    Observable, audited, reproducible. Walkable by your acquirer’s CTO.