ESS Star Tech

Platform and SRE consulting for teams running Kubernetes with noisy on-call.

ESS Star Tech works with Series A–C product and engineering teams that need reliability and platform support without standing up a full SRE organisation. We cover SLOs, on-call and paging design, incident process, observability cost, API gateway migrations, and the parts of the platform that keep needing manual intervention.

Where we usually help

Fractional SRE and platform advice. For startups with Kubernetes but no dedicated SRE function. We help design SLOs, on-call and paging, incident process, and clear ownership of what happens when something breaks.

Fixed-scope platform review. A time-boxed engagement of about two weeks. The client receives a written report, a prioritised 90-day plan, and one readout with leadership.

Observability. OpenTelemetry pipelines, log volume and cost, cardinality, and retention. We work with stacks such as Grafana, Prometheus, Vector, and ClickHouse — aimed at signals someone owns, at a cost the team can defend.

API gateway work. Evaluating and migrating gateways (for example Tyk), OAuth, fit with Kubernetes and Istio, GitOps packaging, and cutover planning. Architecture and enabling work; the client’s team implements.

Kubernetes, GKE, and cloud. Node pools, Spot, autoscaling, networking, and multi-region patterns. Design reviews and reference configurations the client’s team can run.

How working with ESS Star Tech goes

Engagements usually begin with a short scoping call, followed by a written proposal. Two shapes are common: a fixed-scope review with defined deliverables, or a monthly retainer for ongoing fractional advice. Work is remote, with hours in IST and overlap for US and EU time zones.

Contracts and invoices are issued by ESS Star Tech. GST invoices are available. At the end of an engagement the client keeps documentation, runbooks, and a clear handover so ownership stays with their team.

Kinds of problems we help with

  • A team paging on every pod restart
  • Log bills growing faster than traffic
  • An API gateway migration stuck at the auth model
  • On-call with no SLOs and no escalation path
  • GKE node pools that thrash under Spot and autoscaling
  • Observability installed, but nobody owns cardinality or retention

About the company

ESS Star Tech is an independent technology consultancy based in Mumbai. We work with product and engineering teams in India and abroad on cloud infrastructure, reliability, observability, and API platforms.

Contact

Email essstarttech@gmail.com. Include a short note on the stack, the problem (on-call, cost, a migration, ownership), and roughly when a reply is needed.

Replies usually within a day.