Practical engineering consultancy

I help small SaaS, education, and learning-platform teams understand why their system has become slow, fragile, or hard to extend, and turn that understanding into a plan they can execute.

This is hands-on engineering support: investigation, clear trade-offs, and an implementation path grounded in the system you already have.

Where I can help

DevOps and Reliability

• Review deployment, infrastructure, testing, and observability practices
• Make PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, and cloud changes safer to test, explain, and roll back
• Turn repeated incidents into fixed root causes with evidence

AI-Native Engineering

• Identify useful, bounded AI opportunities in an existing product or operation
• Design privacy, approval, cost, and failure boundaries before implementation
• Decide whether a workflow needs an AI model, conventional automation, or both
• Prototype one valuable workflow instead of starting with an oversized platform

Full Stack Development

• Understand a legacy Rails or learning-platform codebase and its highest-risk constraints
• Investigate slow requests, database queries, background jobs, and exports
• Plan incremental modernization without an unnecessary rewrite

First offer: Reliability and Modernization Audit

A fixed-scope diagnostic for a team that knows its platform is holding back delivery and wants a second pair of experienced eyes.

The audit produces:

• A review of the agreed system areas and current constraints
• A concise findings report
• A prioritized risk and opportunity list
• Recommended next steps, including what not to change yet
• A review call to discuss the evidence and options

The scope is deliberately bounded. The first step is to understand the problem, not to sell a rewrite or promise an autonomous AI transformation. This offer is still being validated with potential customers.

Why this work

I have more than two decades of experience building and operating web software: Ruby on Rails systems, learning platforms, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, CI, and production delivery. My writing documents the reasoning behind the work: what was investigated, which assumptions changed, what trade-offs mattered, and how the result was verified. Confidential client and employer information is not disclosed.

Is this a good fit?

This may be useful if:

• Your team has a working product but technical change is becoming unpredictable
• Your platform has accumulated performance or operational pain
• You need a modernization plan before committing to major implementation work
• You want practical AI advice that respects privacy, cost, and human approval
• You value a bounded investigation and clear written evidence

It is probably not a fit if you are looking for a large agency, a vague strategy presentation, or a promise to replace an entire system immediately.

Start with a conversation

Email joeyw@reallyenglish.com with:

• A short description of the platform
• The problem that is most expensive or frustrating today
• Any deadline or trigger that makes it important now

A conversation is not a commitment to an audit. It is a way to establish whether the problem, scope, and working style are a good match.

This page describes an initial consultancy offer for validation. It is not a promise of availability, pricing, or a specific engagement until scope and conflicts are reviewed.