Strategy & Architecture Design
Six to eight weeks. Vendor evaluation, internal architecture, and integration design — compressed into one engagement, with the decisions in writing and the work imported into your tracker. The call compounds across every quarter that follows it.
Overview
The decision in front of you is bigger than a vendor RFP and smaller than a full platform rebuild. A category of infrastructure — [TK: name the category, e.g., "identity," "data pipeline," "payments," "authentication"] — that the business depends on, and the current shape of it is either missing, borrowed, or about to be outgrown. Three vendors are circling. The team has opinions. The CEO wants the call made before the next board meeting.
Picking the vendor is not the same problem as designing the integration, and designing the integration is not the same problem as scoping the internal architecture — but they all have to be decided together, and they all have to be decided well. This engagement compresses the three into one. At the end, you have the vendor chosen with the reasoning, the architecture drawn, the integration specified, and the work imported into your tracker. The decisions land together so the quarter doesn't.
What this engagement produces
Four outcomes, each delivered in writing and structured so your team can execute without me in the room.
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The vendor chosen.
A scored evaluation across the viable options, with the recommendation called clearly and the reasoning documented — including the second-best choice and what would flip the call.
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The architecture specified.
Target-state diagram for the system end-to-end, with component responsibilities, data flows, and the interfaces your team will build against.
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The integration designed.
How the chosen vendor lands inside your existing stack — what changes, what stays, what breaks, and what ships in which order.
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Importable work items in your tracker.
The design translated into tickets — acceptance criteria, dependencies, sequencing — ready for the team to pick up on day one.
Scope of work
Three workstreams, run in parallel where they can be and in sequence where they must. Each one produces a named deliverable.
- Workstream 1
Vendor evaluation
Survey the category. Score the viable options against the criteria that actually matter. Call the winner and the second-best.
- Vendor landscape — the full category, with the non-starters named and filtered
- Scoring rubric — weighted against your specific stack, volume, and strategic direction
- Deep evaluation of the short list — typically three to five vendors, [TK: name the vendor category and representative vendors the client should expect to see scored, e.g., "ID5, LiveRamp (RampID + ATS), IntentIQ, Optable, UID2/EUID" — pattern pulled from the Rise proposal]
- Commercial and contractual review — pricing models, lock-in, data rights, exit terms
- Reference calls — with operators currently running the short-listed vendors, where the relationships exist
- Recommendation with reasoning — the call, the second-best, and the conditions under which the call would flip
- Workstream 2
Internal architecture
Lay out how the chosen infrastructure lives inside your stack — today, six months from now, and at the next scale step.
- Current-state architecture — what you run now, where the new system has to plug in, what's already load-bearing
- Target-state architecture — diagram, component responsibilities, data flow, failure domains
- Data model and interface contracts — what crosses the boundary, in what shape
- Capacity and scaling plan — where the system breaks at 10x, what to do about it before you get there
- [TK: one or two domain-specific items, e.g., "identity packaging specification," "event schema registry," "data contract governance"]
- Migration plan — how you get from current-state to target-state without a forklift upgrade
- Workstream 3
Integration design
Specify how the vendor and your system talk — precisely enough that the downstream teams can build against it.
- Integration specification — endpoints, payloads, retry and failure semantics, auth model
- DSP or downstream integration design — [TK: name the downstream systems in scope for this client, e.g., "DSP integration for enriched IDs," "analytics pipeline for event enrichment"]
- Testing and validation plan — how you know it works before it ships to production
- Rollout staging — the sequence of canaries, ramps, and go/no-go gates
- Observability requirements — what you have to measure to know the integration is earning its fee
- Importable work items in your tracker — tickets with acceptance criteria, sequenced, in the format your team uses
Out of scope
These are named to be honest about where my expertise ends. If you need support in these areas, I can recommend specialists — and I'll make the introduction, not just send a list.
- Hands-on implementation of the design. A separate execution retainer is available and scoped at the close of Phase 1 if the fit is there.
- Vendor contract negotiation on your behalf. I'll tell you what leverage you have and where the terms typically bend; your procurement or legal team owns the negotiation.
- Staffing the build. I can spec the roles; I won't fill them.
- [TK: one domain-specific exclusion, e.g., "data residency and GDPR/CPRA sign-off," "SOC 2 scoping for the new vendor," "DSP commercial relationships"]
- Organizational change management beyond the engineering team directly touching the system.
- Ongoing operations or managed services for the stack after the plan lands.
Access and inputs
The engagement clock starts when access to core systems and stakeholders is granted. The more context you can hand me up front, the sharper the output.
- Read access to the systems that will integrate with the new infrastructure, plus any related internal documentation
- Existing vendor shortlists, RFPs, or scored evaluations — even incomplete ones save a week
- Calendar access to the engineering, product, and commercial stakeholders who will live with the decision: typically four to six people
- The strategic context — the board material, the roadmap, the commercial pressure shaping why this quarter
- Current contracts with vendors who might be displaced or renegotiated as a result of the call
- A named point of contact on your side — one person who can unblock access when something stalls
- [TK: domain-specific input, e.g., "sample of production event data under NDA," "current integration specs with upstream partners"]
Context is the input. The more you send up front, the less of week one I spend asking for it.
How the engagement runs
Five steps. Same sequence every time — the variable is the system and the vendor landscape, not the process.
- 1
Kickoff call.
Week one, day one. Align on access, make introductions, confirm the stakeholder map, and set the evaluation criteria that will frame the vendor scoring.
- 2
Discovery.
Weeks one through four. Structured conversations with the team, system and integration review, vendor deep-dives, reference calls. Every call is a discovery call — no meeting scheduled that isn't advancing the decision.
- 3
Weekly async status.
Every Friday, in writing. What I looked at, which vendors moved up or down the shortlist, what architectural calls I'm sitting with, and what I need from you next week. No meeting tax.
- 4
Early wins flagged on discovery.
If something actionable surfaces mid-engagement — a vendor whose contract renewal should be paused, an architectural assumption that's already obsolete, a quick integration win worth shipping now — it gets flagged the day I find it.
- 5
Presentation of findings.
Week six to eight. Formal walkthrough with the room that needs to hear it — engineering leadership, the CEO, and where applicable the board. The deliverables land in writing the same week.
What lands at the end
Every deliverable is a noun. Each one lives in a document, a diagram, or a tracker — in the format your team already uses to build.
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Vendor evaluation scorecard.
Every viable option scored against the criteria, with weights, reasoning, and the call.
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Recommendation memo.
The chosen vendor, the second-best, and the conditions under which the call would flip — written to be handed to a board.
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Target-state architecture document.
Diagrams, component responsibilities, data flows, failure domains, and the reasoning behind the shape.
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Data model and interface contracts.
What crosses the boundary between your system and the chosen vendor, specified precisely enough to build against.
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Integration specification.
Endpoints, payloads, auth, retries, failure semantics — the handshake in full detail.
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[TK: domain-specific named deliverable, e.g., "eID packaging specification," "event schema registry"]
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Migration plan.
How the system moves from current-state to target-state without a forklift, sequenced and staged.
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Rollout plan.
Canary stages, ramp percentages, go/no-go gates, rollback procedure.
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Observability requirements.
What has to be measured to know the integration is earning its fee.
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Capacity and scaling plan.
Where the system breaks at 10x and what to do about it before you get there.
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Decision record.
Why this vendor, why this architecture, what the alternatives were, and what would need to change to revisit.
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Executive summary.
One document for the CEO and the board — what was decided, what it means commercially, what comes next.
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Importable work items in your tracker.
Jira, Linear, GitHub Issues, or the format of your choosing — the design translated directly into execution.
Investment
Fixed fee. Not hourly, not a day-rate, not a meter running while the Slack channel is open. The scope is fixed, the fee is fixed, and the timeline is six to eight weeks from access granted. If discovery reveals the problem is actually a different shape, I'll tell you before we start — not after the invoice is out.
Terms are fifty percent on execution of the engagement letter, fifty percent on delivery, Net 15. The investment is designed to pay for itself — usually through the vendor lock-in avoided, the rebuild not done twice, or the quarter your engineering team doesn't spend choosing the wrong infrastructure and then unwinding it.
Scope drives fee. Send the problem and a scoped proposal comes back inside a week.
What comes after
At the close of the engagement, there are two paths — both optional, neither pre-sold. The default is a clean hand-off: your team takes the design and builds against it. Both paths exist because some clients want them, and they're named so you can plan for them.
Execution support retainer.
Hands-on implementation oversight during the build — architecture review of the code as it ships, vendor escalations, rollout decisions, and the calls that come up between the plan and production. Monthly, cancelable, defined scope, scoped at the close of Phase 1.
Phase 2.
If the design uncovers a second shape of work — a migration engagement, a secondary vendor decision, a full rebuild — we'll scope it at the close of Phase 1 rather than pre-selling it. A new engagement letter, not a rollover.
The default is the clean hand-off. The retainer exists because some teams want the continuity. Either is fine.
About Cauley & Co.
I'm Jordan Cauley. Eight years leading revenue products at a publisher platform serving more than sixteen thousand properties, a Prebid Board seat, and named vendor work across the programmatic supply chain. Cauley & Co. is my consulting practice under Cauley Digital LLC — the decisions you don't have the internal angle to make, made and documented from the outside.
[TK: engagement-specific proof — e.g., "I've run identity vendor evaluations across the full short list (ID5, LiveRamp, IntentIQ, Optable, UID2/EUID), designed the integration architecture for enriched IDs in live exchanges, and shipped the DSP-side packaging that turned upstream enrichment into buyer behavior change. Jordan's own language needed here."]
You can read the operator work on LinkedIn and the current writing at /writing.
Common questions
- We're already mid-RFP. Can you join in flight?
- Sometimes. Depends on how far along the RFP is and whether the criteria holding up the scoring are the right ones. Send what you have and I'll tell you whether it makes sense to start where you are or re-run the top.
- How is this different from a vendor-led RFP response?
- Vendors run RFPs to win. I run evaluations to pick the right answer. The scorecard weights the criteria that matter to your stack, not the ones that flatter a specific vendor's strengths.
- Do you have conflicts with specific vendors?
- No paid relationships with vendors I'd score. If a vendor has referred work to me historically, it goes in the conflict disclosure and out of the scoring panel. You see everything.
- Can you execute the integration after the design?
- Sometimes, on a retainer, scoped at the close of Phase 1. The default is a clean hand-off to your team. The retainer exists when the continuity makes sense.
- What does it cost?
- Scope drives fee. Send the problem and a scoped proposal comes back inside a week.
Tell us what you need
The decisions you make about this infrastructure in the next quarter will compound across every quarter that follows. Six to eight weeks — the vendor, the architecture, and the integration decided together, with the work in your tracker. Limited engagements this quarter. If the timing fits, send the problem — a reply comes back inside two business days.
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