ShelCron

Managed Services

DevOps Retainer

Reserved DevOps capacity for pipelines, environments, and release reliability work each month.

DevOps Retainer reserves engineering capacity for CI/CD care, environment fixes, release tooling, and platform chores that never make the product roadmap. You get a shared backlog, planning cadence, and delivery within plan hours—without hiring a full platform team on day one.

From $149 / seat / month

Who it’s for

  • Engineering teams outgrowing ad-hoc DevOps help
  • Companies needing pipeline and environment continuity
  • Product orgs that want platform work without a full hire

Problems we address

  • CI breaks linger because nobody is assigned
  • Environments drift between staging and production
  • Platform work loses to feature pressure every sprint

Expected outcomes

  • Named capacity for DevOps backlog items
  • Cadence for planning and demos of completed work
  • Escalation of larger programs into scoped projects

Capabilities

Concrete engineering capabilities included in a typical engagement for this service.

CI/CD pipeline maintenance and improvements

Environment and secrets hygiene support

Release tooling and rollback path care

Container and deploy path troubleshooting

Observability hook improvements within capacity

Monthly delivery summary

Technology

Representative technologies used for this service. Final stack depends on your estate.

  • GitHub Actions / GitLab CI
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes / cloud PaaS
  • Terraform
  • Observability stack hooks

Architecture

Operations loop

Signals from systems feed monitoring, incident response, and change control.

SystemsTelemetryAlertsTicketsChange

Deliverables

  • Onboarding of repos and environments
  • Shared DevOps backlog
  • Monthly completed-work summary
  • Notes for recurring operational tasks

Out of scope

  • Unbounded emergency war rooms beyond plan terms
  • Guaranteed deploy frequency

Timeline

Typical timeline

Activation within about one week of plan start

Timeline depends on scope, access, and dependencies—not a delivery guarantee.

Process

A clear delivery path from discovery through handover and optional support.

  1. 01

    Discovery

    Goals, constraints, success criteria, and current-state review.

  2. 02

    Architecture

    Target design, interfaces, risks, and delivery sequence.

  3. 03

    Implementation

    Incremental build with visible progress and documented decisions.

  4. 04

    Testing

    Functional checks, failure paths, and acceptance criteria validation.

  5. 05

    Deployment

    Controlled release to staging and production with rollback paths.

  6. 06

    Handover

    Runbooks, access notes, and operator/admin walkthrough.

  7. 07

    Support

    Optional hypercare window or retainer continuity after go-live.

Subscription-based delivery

This service is delivered through monthly seat plans. Choose a plan and seat count to reserve capacity.

Related work

Example / concept projects shown for illustration unless otherwise verified.

FAQ

Major platform rebuilds are scoped as projects. The retainer is for continuous improvement and care within monthly capacity.

Ready to build?

Tell us about your environment, constraints, and target outcomes. We’ll recommend a package or a scoped quote.