I have spent the last several years building and fixing infrastructure for funded startups across fintech, healthtech, and SaaS. Before starting RKSSH LLP, I worked on Kubernetes clusters at scale, designed CI/CD pipelines from scratch, and helped teams achieve SOC2 and ISO 27001 compliance without pausing their engineering work.
I write about the problems I see repeatedly — slow deploys, misconfigured clusters, cloud spend that nobody has reviewed in a year, and compliance that engineers treat as someone else's problem. Most of what is in this blog is drawn directly from production, not tutorials.
All articles — 20
GitHub Actions vs Jenkins in 2026: Which CI/CD Tool Should Your Team Actually Use?
Jenkins still powers 40% of CI/CD in production. GitHub Actions is eating the rest. Here's a clear-eyed comparison - including when Jenkins is the right answer and when it's legacy debt.
Cut Your EKS Bill by 60–80% with Spot Instances and Karpenter
Most EKS clusters run entirely on On-Demand instances and overpay by 60% or more. Here's the exact setup - Karpenter node pools, spot interruption handling, and workload placement - that we use to reduce bills without touching application code.
How to Deploy LLMs to Kubernetes with vLLM: A Production Guide
Running LLMs in production is an infrastructure problem as much as an AI problem. Here's the exact setup - GPU node pools, vLLM on Kubernetes, autoscaling, and request routing - that we use to put language models into production for AI startups.
Zero-Downtime Deployments on Kubernetes: Rolling vs Blue-Green vs Canary
Three strategies, three trade-offs. Which deployment pattern is right for your team depends on your risk tolerance, infrastructure budget, and how fast you want to detect problems. Here's the honest breakdown with working configs.
Kubernetes Secrets Management in 2026: Vault vs External Secrets Operator vs Infisical
Kubernetes Secrets are base64-encoded, not encrypted. Most startups find this out after a security review. Here's how to actually manage secrets in production - and which tool fits which team size.
GitOps with ArgoCD: The Right Way to Deploy to Kubernetes
kubectl apply in production is an antipattern. GitOps solves the core problem: making your Git repository the single source of truth for what is running in your cluster. Here's a complete ArgoCD setup from scratch.
Prometheus + Grafana + Loki: Production Monitoring for Kubernetes in 2026
Most startup Kubernetes clusters have monitoring that detects problems after users report them. Here's how to set up the full observability stack - metrics, logs, and alerts - that catches issues before they reach users.
Platform Engineering for Startups: When You Actually Need an Internal Developer Platform
80% of large engineering orgs now have platform teams. But most startups implement platform engineering too early - or too late. Here's the clear signal that tells you when to invest and what to build first.
How to Set Up a CI/CD Pipeline for Your Startup in 2026 (Step-by-Step)
A practical guide to CI/CD pipeline setup for startups. Which tools to pick, how to structure your pipeline, what a working GitHub Actions config looks like, and what to avoid.
DevSecOps for Startups: How to Embed Security into Your CI/CD Pipeline
Security reviews at startups typically happen after something goes wrong. DevSecOps moves security earlier - into the CI pipeline, not the post-incident review. Here's a practical setup that catches vulnerabilities before they reach production.
FinOps for Engineers: How to Own Cloud Costs Without a Finance Team
Cloud cost overruns are not a finance problem - they are an engineering problem. Here's how engineering teams take ownership of cloud spend: the metrics to track, the tooling to use, and the decisions that cut 30–50% of the bill.
Kubernetes vs ECS: Which Container Platform Does Your Startup Actually Need?
An honest comparison of ECS and Kubernetes for startups. Team size, complexity trade-offs, migration cost, and a clear decision framework from engineers who have set up both.
AWS vs GCP vs Azure for Startups in 2026: Which Cloud Should You Choose?
Most cloud decisions are made by whoever set up the first EC2 instance three years ago. Here's a structured comparison for startups that have not committed yet - or are considering a migration.
How to Pass SOC2 Type II Without Slowing Down Your Engineering Team
SOC2 Type II takes 6–12 months and most engineering teams dread it. It does not have to be painful. Here's how to structure the technical controls so compliance becomes an output of your existing engineering practices, not extra work on top.
Terraform vs Pulumi vs AWS CDK - Which IaC Tool Should Your Team Use in 2026?
A direct comparison of the three most-used infrastructure-as-code tools in 2026. Which one fits your team depends on who writes it, not which one has more stars on GitHub.
The True Cost of Manual Deployments - And Why It's Worse Than You Think
Manual deployments don't just cost time. They cost engineering hours, shipping velocity, and morale. Here is the full cost calculation - and why most CTOs underestimate it.
How to Cut AWS Costs by 40% Without Touching Your Application Code
Most cloud overspend comes from five fixable misconfigurations. You do not need to refactor anything - you need to look in the right places.
MLOps in 2026: Taking ML Models From Jupyter Notebook to Production
Most ML projects stall at the notebook stage not because the model is bad but because the infrastructure to serve, monitor, and retrain it does not exist. Here is how to build it.
ISO 27001 Certification for Startups - What It Actually Takes in 2026
ISO 27001 is the most commonly requested security certification for enterprise B2B deals. Here is a realistic picture of what the process looks like, how long it takes, and what the technical work involves.
Docker Compose to Kubernetes: When to Migrate and When to Wait
Kubernetes is not always the answer. Here is how to decide whether your team needs it now, and what the migration actually looks like when you do.