Platform
Kubernetes
When you actually need it - not when you don't.
What it is
Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform. It is the industry-standard way to run production services at scale. It is also famously over-applied to teams that would have been happier on simpler infrastructure.
Why we reach for it
- Industry-standard - every major cloud has a managed offering, every major tool integrates with it.
- Excellent at running multi-service, multi-team, multi-region workloads - which is what real platforms become.
- Strong primitives for progressive delivery (canary, blue/green), autoscaling, and zero-downtime deploys.
- Portable across clouds, which reduces vendor lock-in.
When we don’t
- -Teams under about 20 engineers rarely need it. ECS, Fly, Railway, or plain EC2 is usually the right answer.
- -Simple products with one or two services - the operational overhead of Kubernetes outweighs the benefit.
- -When nobody on the team has operated Kubernetes at 3am - learn on a smaller surface first.
Where it shows up
Engagements where Kubernetes typically lands.
Also in Platform
Working with Kubernetes?
Tell us what you’re shipping.
30 minutes, no pitch deck. We’ll ask what you’re building, what hurts, and whether we’re the right fit. Kubernetes expertise is table stakes - we talk scope, not résumés.