Question 1

Why use a 3x multiplier for opportunity cost? Isn't that inflated?

Accepted Answer

The 3x multiplier is conservative based on feature value. When developers aren't building features, you lose: 1) Direct revenue from features (new revenue, reduced churn). 2) Competitive advantage (competitors ship faster). 3) Team morale (developers hate infrastructure work, want to build products). Research shows product features generate 2-5x their development cost in value. We use 3x as middle ground. Example: €1,000 spent on feature development typically generates €3,000+ in revenue impact. €1,000 spent firefighting infrastructure generates €0 revenue—pure cost. Some argue it should be 5x or higher. We're being conservative.

Question 2

Our developers only spend a few hours per week on infrastructure. Is that really a problem?

Accepted Answer

Depends on team size and costs. 5-person team at €75K average salary, 4 hours/week each on infrastructure = €37,500/year direct cost + €112,500 opportunity cost = €150,000 total impact. For that €150K, you could get premium managed infrastructure (€24K/year) and have €126K left over. Or hire a full-time DevOps engineer (€80K) and still save €70K while improving quality. Small amounts per person compound across teams. Plus those 'few hours' are rarely the full story—developers underreport infrastructure time because it's fragmented (15 minutes here fixing a deploy, 30 minutes there debugging a server).

Question 3

What counts as infrastructure time vs normal development work?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure time includes: deploy troubleshooting, server configuration, security patches, performance debugging, database maintenance, monitoring setup, SSL renewals, backup management, outage response, scaling issues. Normal development: building features, writing code, fixing application bugs, designing user interfaces. Gray area: application performance optimization (counts as both). Rule of thumb: if it's about making the app run rather than what the app does, it's infrastructure. Track this honestly for 2 weeks—most teams are shocked when they actually measure it. The time is fragmented so it doesn't feel like much, but adds up to 10-20% of developer time.

Question 4

If I hire someone or use managed hosting, won't my developers still need to spend some time on infrastructure?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but 80-90% reduction is realistic. With managed hosting: developers just deploy code, infrastructure team handles the rest. Maybe 1-2 hours/week for deploy-related issues vs 8-10 hours/week managing everything. With fractional DevOps: they handle 90% of infrastructure, developers only escalate complex application-specific issues. With full-time DevOps: developers might spend 5-10% time on infrastructure vs 30-40% before. The goal isn't zero infrastructure time—it's having developers focus on high-value technical work (architecture, complex features) instead of commodity infrastructure tasks (SSL renewals, server patches).

Question 5

How do I convince my team that infrastructure time is actually expensive?

Accepted Answer

Have them track it honestly for 2 weeks. Most developers don't realize how much time they spend because it's fragmented. Track: deploys, troubleshooting, security updates, performance issues, monitoring, backups, anything not directly building features. Then do the math publicly: Hours/week × hourly rate × 52 weeks. Add the opportunity cost (3x for features not built). Show the comparison: 'We're spending €150K/year on infrastructure. Premium managed hosting costs €24K. Even with a full-time DevOps engineer at €80K, we save €70K AND ship features faster.' Numbers are hard to argue with. Most teams agree once they see actual costs.

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