DevOps for AI Startups

Your AI product just got traction. Don't let your infra kill the momentum.

Most AI startups are one traffic spike away from disaster. I help founders fix their infrastructure before it becomes the reason they lose users — fast deploys, zero downtime, and a stack that scales.

Get a Free Infra Review →
50%
Faster CI/CD — pipeline time cut from 22 min to 11 min
0
Downtime on full VM-to-Kubernetes migrations
100%
Observability — metrics, logs & distributed traces
The Problem

Infrastructure debt hits hardest at your best moment

AI startups move fast and build for now. Then a launch goes viral, a tweet blows up, or you close a big deal — and suddenly the cracks appear.

ERR_503

Downtime at exactly the wrong time

You hit Product Hunt, land on the front page, and your servers go down. Users leave, investors screenshot the error page.

"We had 3,000 signups waiting and our API was returning 503s for 40 minutes."

NO_ROLLBACK

Every deploy feels like gambling

No rollback strategy. No canary. One bad push and production is on fire — so velocity dies.

"We had to wake up the CTO at 3am to manually roll back a deploy."

NO_METRICS

You're flying blind in production

No observability means you learn about problems from users, not dashboards. By the time you know, users have already left.

"We found out our inference latency doubled from a user's tweet, not our monitoring."

How It Works

From broken to bulletproof in weeks, not months

A structured process — no lengthy onboarding, no discovery theater. We start with what matters most and move fast.

01

Free Infrastructure Review

Understand the stack, identify the biggest risks, and determine what should be fixed first.

Free · No commitment
02

Fix the Foundation

For clearly scoped infrastructure work, start with a fixed-price project like the AWS + Terraform Foundation.

$1,500–$2,500 · Fixed
03

Add DevOps Capacity

Use prepaid DevOps hours for improvements, troubleshooting, scaling, observability, CI/CD, Terraform, and other ongoing infrastructure work.

Flexible hours
04

Scale the Partnership

If the team starts needing consistent DevOps capacity, move to a custom fractional engagement.

Custom fractional
Services

Everything your infra needs to handle real scale

I don't just advise — I build, deploy, and hand you something that works. Senior-level execution with no account managers between us.

AWS Setup & Migration

Clean AWS environments built for your actual stage — never over- or under-engineered. ECS/Fargate or EC2 for most startups, Kubernetes only when you truly need it.

AWS ECS/Fargate EC2 Kubernetes

Full Observability Stack

Catch problems before your users do. Metrics, logs, and distributed tracing — connected and meaningful, not just running in the background.

Prometheus Grafana Loki Tempo OTel

Safe Deploy Pipelines

Ship with confidence. Canary deployments, feature flags, and instant rollbacks turn dreaded deploys into a daily habit.

Canary GitOps CI/CD ArgoCD

High Availability

Multi-AZ deployments, database failover, and disaster recovery runbooks. No single hardware, zone, or region failure should take you down.

Multi-AZ RDS HA Failover DR

Cloud Cost Optimization

Most AI startups your stage overpay by 30–40%. I find the waste, right-size resources, and add spending guardrails before the CFO asks.

Cost Explorer Spot Reserved

Terraform Infrastructure-as-Code

Everything reproducible, version-controlled, and reviewable. Every client gets a Terraform repo they own and can hand to any engineer.

Terraform Helm Nomad GitOps
Who This Is For

You're a good fit if...

You're an AI startup or SMB with real traction

Users are using it. Now you need the infra to match.

You need a clean AWS foundation to build on

Terraform, proper networking, CI/CD — done right the first time.

You can't justify a full-time DevOps hire yet

Senior DevOps expertise without the $200k salary.

A big launch or growth moment is coming

Better to fix your infra before the spike, not during.

Get Started

Not sure what to fix first? Start with a free conversation.

No pitch. No pressure. I'll tell you what I'd fix first and whether I can help.

Free Infrastructure Review

Find your biggest infrastructure risks — at no cost

$0 / free

Tell me about your stack, traffic, cloud setup, and deployment flow. I'll identify the highest-risk infrastructure gaps and recommend the best first step. No commitment, no agenda — just clarity.

30-minute infrastructure review call
Quick review of your current stack and deployment flow
3–5 highest-risk issues identified
Recommended first step, specific to your situation
No commitment required
Get a Free Infra Review →
Pricing

Simple, transparent pricing

Start free. Build a solid AWS foundation. Add flexible DevOps hours as you grow. No long-term contracts required.

Start Here

Free Infra Review

$0

For founders who aren't sure what's risky or what to fix first.

·30-min infrastructure review call
·Quick stack and deployment review
·3–5 highest-risk issues identified
·No commitment
Get a Free Infra Review
Best First Step

AWS + Terraform Foundation

$1,500–$2,500

For startups that need a clean, reproducible AWS setup they can actually build on.

·AWS setup or migration
·Terraform IaC repo
·VPC, IAM, networking basics
·ECS/Fargate or EC2 deployment
·Documentation & handover
Start with AWS Foundation

Flexible DevOps Capacity

Get senior DevOps help without committing to a full-time hire. Use your hours wherever your infrastructure needs them most — AWS, Terraform, CI/CD, observability, reliability, scaling, migrations, cost optimization, or production troubleshooting. Priorities change. Your DevOps support should be able to change with them.

Focused Work

DevOps Sprint

10 DevOps Hours — $1,199

For focused infrastructure work, troubleshooting, or a specific improvement.

·CI/CD improvements
·Terraform work
·Observability setup
·AWS configuration
·Infrastructure troubleshooting
Get Started
Most Popular

Growth Hours

20 DevOps Hours — $2,199

For startups with multiple infrastructure priorities who need ongoing senior DevOps help without hiring full-time.

·Infrastructure improvements
·Reliability & scaling work
·CI/CD & observability
·Cost optimization
·Terraform & architecture
Get Started
Maximum Capacity

Scale Hours

40 DevOps Hours — $3,999

Senior DevOps capacity across infrastructure, reliability, deployment and scaling — without committing to a full-time hire.

·Infrastructure & reliability work
·Deployment & scaling
·Observability & CI/CD
·Terraform & cost optimization
·Priority scheduling
Get Started

Need more ongoing support?

For teams that consistently need significant DevOps capacity, custom fractional DevOps engagements are available.

Let's Talk →
About

I'm Mendi — a DevOps engineer who's also been a founder.

I've built a startup from zero. That means I've built the entire cloud infrastructure from scratch, made every cost tradeoff myself, and felt what it's like when something breaks at 2am with users waiting and investors watching.

I know the pressure. The speed. The "we'll fix it later" decisions that pile up until they explode on your best day. That's exactly why I built SurgeOps — because when your infra is on fire, you don't need a consultant who's never shipped anything. You need someone who's been in your seat.

On the engineering side: 6+ years running production infrastructure at AI and SaaS companies. Full VM-to-Kubernetes migrations with zero downtime, observability stacks built from scratch, CI/CD pipelines that go from slow and scary to fast and safe — and SRE programs I've designed and taught to 20+ engineers at a venture-backed AI platform.

AWS Kubernetes Terraform Prometheus Grafana OpenTelemetry Loki Tempo Nomad ArgoCD Helm CI/CD
FAQ

Common questions

What does the Free Infrastructure Review include?

It's a free 30-minute call where you tell me about your stack, traffic, cloud setup, and deployment flow. I'll identify the 3–5 biggest infrastructure risks and recommend what to fix first. No commitment, no pitch — just a clear first step.

What is included in the AWS + Terraform Foundation package? +
How do DevOps Hours work? +
Do I need Kubernetes from day one? +
Can you migrate an existing app to AWS? +
Do you require long-term contracts? +
How is SurgeOps different from a DevOps agency? +
What tech stack do you work with? +

Ready to build infra your product can actually scale on?

Free 30-minute infrastructure review. Tell me about your stack and I'll tell you what I'd fix first — and whether I can help. No pitch, no pressure.

Get a Free Infra Review →
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