A guest post by Joshua Jackson, VP of Engineering at Employ, Inc.

When Employ brought together three ATS solutions—Jobvite, Lever, and JazzHR—we knew we were the only company that could offer hiring solutions to meet organizations’ unique needs, but we also faced a big opportunity: our collective cloud infrastructure could be shifted and optimized to deliver significant cost efficiencies. 

After working with expert architecture consultants and our preferred Managed Service Provider, we had already achieved a 23% reduction in cloud costs.  But with Aimably, we were able to increase the number of focus areas and accelerate progress. 

Their approach not only uncovered additional savings but also empowered our engineering team to take ownership of cost optimization. Here’s how we did it and what we learned along the way.

The Challenge: Finding Savings in a Complex Cloud Environment

Our ATS infrastructure was designed to handle an incredible amount of load, commensurate with their broad market coverage and feature set. After a year of architecture work, our cloud cost optimization process was very manual and tough to scale. 

So, our private equity owners introduced us to Aimably. I was skeptical at first—I have seen plenty of AWS audits that do not offer much value and are a complete distraction. However, we were assured that this would not be another generic cost audit and there would be rapid savings, which got our attention. 

To our surprise, Aimably’s detailed assessment helped us to rapidly generate an additional 20% in savings. Given that the obvious savings opportunities had already been taken care of, I found this number to be impressive.

The Aimably Solution: A Guided Roadmap to Success

One of the most impactful aspects of Aimably’s engagement was their delivery of a comprehensive, actionable roadmap. They broke down recommendations by effort and complexity, which we translated into three categories: easy, medium, and challenging. Plus, they provided us with step by step guidance and resource lists, so we knew exactly where to start. This structure allowed us to focus on quick wins early on while building momentum to tackle more complex optimizations.

With Aimably’s guidance, we completed:

• 89% of Aimably-proposed easy projects, including rightsizing infrastructure and optimizing storage policies.
• 58% of Aimably-proposed medium projects, such as streamlining database configurations.

Select Aimably-proposed challenging projects, like reworking MongoDB implementations, which aligned with our planned system upgrades and emerged as the largest single contributor to cost reduction.

Overcoming Resistance and Building Confidence

Of course, not every recommendation was an immediate “yes” from the team. We had initial hesitations, particularly around:

• Archival Storage: The team wanted to ensure we would not hinder customer access to data. Aimably’s documentation showed how we could modify storage policies in stages, ensuring compliance with service-level agreements while unlocking cost savings. So, we worked with them to marry their approach with our approach to fit our customer needs.
• Database Optimization:Adjusting MongoDB configurations felt complex, but Aimably’s recommendations aligned with a necessary system upgrade, making the process seamless.

Each success built confidence. The quick wins Aimably helped us achieve gave the team momentum to tackle larger, more complex projects.

Empowering Our Team

What set Aimably apart was their ability to mentor our teams and grow their skill sets. They didn’t just hand us a list of recommendations - they explained the "why" and "how" behind each one. This not only helped us execute the projects but also created a sense of accountability and ownership among the team.

In fact, the roadmap became a kind of game for our engineers. They worked to complete projects quickly, often taking on additional projects once they completed assignments. Aimably made cost optimization a team effort, not just a task list.

The Results: Savings Without Sacrifice

When I look back on the work with Aimably and our prior architecture work, we have achieved a combined 40% reduction in cloud costs - and that’s not even adjusting for customer growth during the same period! This was no small feat, especially given the complexity of our infrastructure and our client delivery requirements. These savings allowed us to preserve critical engineering resources for product growth while driving the company bottom line.

Aimably’s recommendations were clear, actionable, and—most importantly—effective. Their guidance got us results faster than we could have on our own. As someone responsible for staying on top of cloud infrastructure, I can confidently say: you simply cannot keep up with every new feature and capability from cloud vendors. Aimably helps you stay on top of those continually improving products to maximize the value to expense.

“Working with Aimably wasn’t just about cutting costs. It was about empowering our team to develop cost-efficient cloud environment fluency.”

The process was fast, effective, and educational. If you’re looking for a partner to transform your cloud cost management, Aimably is the way to go.