DevOps / Backend Reliability Consultant – System Stabilization

Engagement Summary (Read Carefully) We are hiring a senior DevOps / Backend Reliability consultant for a temporary, high-priority engagement to stabilize our production system and ensure it does not go down. This is not feature work and not a full-time role. Your mandate is simple and non-negotiable: The server must remain stable under normal and abnormal conditions, with clear visibility into failures and fast recovery if anything degrades. Why We’re Hiring We have experienced: Backend crashes Login failures Database connection pool exhaustion Performance degradation under very light usage Systems becoming less stable after partial fixes This indicates architecture, configuration, and operational reliability gaps, not isolated bugs. We need an expert who can diagnose, stabilize, and harden the system correctly, then advise us on ongoing safeguards. Primary Objective By the end of this engagement: The backend does not crash Resource exhaustion is prevented, not patched Failures are observable and explainable The system can recover gracefully without manual intervention We have confidence onboarding users will not create instability Scope of Work Phase 1 – Root Cause & Diagnosis (Immediate) Review backend architecture, infra, and deployment setup Analyze logs, metrics, and recent failure patterns Identify exact causes of: DB connection pool exhaustion Server crashes or lockups Performance degradation Validate whether issues stem from: Application lifecycle management Database usage patterns Infrastructure configuration Concurrency, timeouts, or memory leaks Phase 2 – Stabilization & Fixes Implement correct fixes, not workarounds: Proper DB connection lifecycle handling Safe connection limits and pooling strategy Timeouts, retries, and circuit-breaking where appropriate Server configuration tuned for stability Ensure system remains stable through: Restarts Deployments Light-to-moderate load Phase 3 – Reliability & Safeguards Add or refine: Monitoring and alerting Health checks Error visibility and logging Define: What “healthy” looks like What triggers alerts How failures should degrade safely Ensure no single failure can cascade into a full outage Deliverables Clear written explanation of: Root causes Fixes applied Remaining risks (if any) Confirmation that: DB exhaustion cannot silently occur Server crashes are prevented or safely handled Optional: recommendations for long-term reliability best practices Technical Environment AWS (EC2 / RDS / related services) Node.js backend Relational database (Postgres or MySQL) Docker / CI-CD pipelines (if applicable) You do not need to rewrite the system — you need to make it stable and reliable. Who This Is For Senior DevOps, SRE, or Backend Infrastructure Engineer You have: Fixed real production outages Solved DB connection pool exhaustion before Stabilized systems others “patched” You think in: Failure modes Load behavior Graceful degradation You can explain why something broke and why it won’t again Who This Is NOT For Junior DevOps engineers Developers who mainly do features Anyone who “tunes until it works” without root cause analysis Anyone uncomfortable owning production stability Engagement Details Type: Temporary / Contract / Consulting Initial Time: 5–15 hours Start: Immediate Ongoing: Advisory support as needed (optional) Goal: Production stability and confidence by early next week How to Apply (Required) Please include: A production system you stabilized and what was failing Your approach to preventing DB connection pool exhaustion Experience with monitoring and alerting Availability in the next 48–72 hours Whether you’re comfortable pairing live via Zoom / screen-share Final Note We care far more about systems that don’t break than features that ship fast. Apply tot his job