Resident Engineer
One senior engineer, on fixed days every week, inside the systems you already run. They take the processes that cost your team the most hours and put a fix live every few weeks, with the hours measured before and after.
The first month
Week one
The audit and a measured backlog
Weeks two to four
First fix live in your tenant
Every month
One-page report: hours saved against baseline
Throughout
Everything delivered is monitored
Choose your department
The engagement is the same everywhere. What changes is the audit, the processes we start with and the numbers we report.
Leads, CRM and reporting that your commercial team trusts.
Invoices, reconciliations and month-end without the spreadsheets.
Referrals, approvals and status reporting without the re-keying.
Hiring, onboarding and people data that flow between systems.
What a Resident Engineer is
A Resident Engineer is a senior DataCactus engineer who works inside your organisation on fixed days each week, with the people who do the work, and puts fixes into production rather than into a slide deck.
Large technology vendors now call this a forward deployed engineer and reserve it for their biggest customers.2 We do the same work, on the Microsoft platform you already pay for, for organisations of 50 to 1,000 staff, at a price that makes sense for one department.
1
Your engineer sits with the team, maps the processes that cost the most hours, and measures each one: hours per week, volume, how long things take, how often they go wrong. You get a prioritised backlog with a baseline against every item.
2
The engineer builds the first item in your tenant, tests it with your team, puts it live and records a short handover. Then the next one. A small fix ships every few weeks; a bigger one every four to six.
3
One page. What went live, hours saved against the baseline, what is next, one recommendation. You decide the order of the backlog; we advise.
4
Monitoring and fixes for every item delivered are included while the engagement runs.
What you get
Not included, in writing
Microsoft, Azure and AI model consumption (you pay Microsoft directly; we estimate it per backlog item). Changes to your source systems. Same-day or out-of-hours response. Work outside the named department unless the backlog is re-agreed. Anything that needs access not granted by the end of week two.
Is this the right size?
Security and data
Inside your tenant
Everything is built in your Microsoft 365 and Azure environment, under your identity, permissions and policies. Your data does not leave it.
Data protection
A data processing agreement on every engagement. Where AI models are used, they run through Azure OpenAI in your subscription, in the UK region you choose.
Licences and consumption
Estimated per backlog item before it is built, paid by you directly to Microsoft. No reselling, no mark-up.
Access
We ask for the access each item needs, in writing, and we work through your existing change process for anything that touches production systems.
Price and terms
Resident Engineer · One
£3,500 a month
One day a week
Resident Engineer · Two
£6,500 a month
Two days a week
Prices exclude VAT and your Microsoft and Azure consumption.
Nothing to pay if week one disappoints
If the audit and backlog at the end of week one are not worth continuing with, say so and there is no charge.
You keep everything
Solutions, documentation and the runbook are yours on payment. We keep the right to reuse our general components and know-how.
FAQ
No. A contractor sells you days and you manage them. You buy a fixed monthly fee for named days, a measured backlog you own, monitoring of everything delivered, a monthly report and accelerators we bring. The engineer manages the work; you set the priorities.
The minimum is three months because the first month is mostly audit and the first build. After three, it is monthly.
It is yours, with the runbook, the solution inventory and a quote for ongoing cover of what was built.
In your Microsoft tenant and Azure subscription, in the region you choose. It does not come to us.
Bring your messiest process to a 30-minute call.
Tell us which department it sits in and what happens today. We will tell you what the week-one audit would measure, what the first backlog item would probably be, and whether Resident Engineer or a one-off automation is the right fit.