When we reach for it
Most greenfield infrastructure, and anywhere the requirement list runs past compute and a database. Managed services are worth paying for when the alternative is a team maintaining infrastructure instead of building a product.
AWS engineering
The broadest cloud platform, with a managed service for nearly everything and the deepest pool of engineers who have operated it in anger.
What we reach for first
When we would argue against it
Breadth is also the trap. We will not spread a system across fifteen services because each one is individually convenient — every service added is a thing to secure, monitor, budget for and explain to whoever is on call.
What it looks like in delivery
Described in Terraform, deployed by a pipeline, and with a bill someone can read. We tag for cost attribution from the first environment, because retrofitting that onto a running estate is a project in itself.
Where this appears on the site
Published work that names it
Derived from the stacks published on those pages, not written here — so this list cannot claim something the page it points at does not say.
Also in cloud and infrastructure
Working in AWS?
Tell us what it is running, what it costs you today, and what you need it to do next. A senior engineer will tell you what we would keep and what we would change.