Built by data leaders, for data leaders

You've been
burned before.
We get it.

Vendor decks that promise everything. Contracts that lock you in. Juniors billed at senior rates. We started SouthRivers Data because we'd seen all of it from your side of the table — and we knew there was a better way.

Book a call with us What we do differently →
How we work
Engineers we'd put on our own project
Every person we propose has been personally interviewed by us. We worked alongside many of them ourselves.
No bait and switch
Whoever you meet on the call is who shows up to do the work. The good ones don't get pulled away mid-engagement.
No vendor lock-in
You can leave any time. Our job is to be useful enough that you choose not to.
Based in Central Europe (CET) — working with clients across Europe and the US
Stack
Snowflake Snowflake
Databricks Databricks
dbt dbt
Airflow Airflow
Apache Spark Apache Spark
AWS AWS
Azure Azure
GCP GCP
Kafka Kafka
LLMs
AI
Fields
Artificial Intelligence Data Engineering Data Architecture Business Intelligence Analytics Engineering
15+ yrs
Experience delivering data transformations across enterprise organisations
30+
Data platforms designed, built, or audited across Europe and the US
<24h
Average response — you always hear back the same business day
100%
Experienced engineers we've personally vetted. No juniors at senior rates.

If You've Been Here, You Know

The patterns we keep seeing in client engagements

If any of these feel like your team right now, you're not alone — and they're all fixable.

Three dashboards, three answers
You stop trusting the data. Worse, your CEO stops trusting it. Big decisions get made on instinct, and you spend Mondays explaining why.
Months for what should take days
Your team isn't slow. The platform is. Every change ripples through five places. Every "quick win" turns into a sprint.
The cloud bill nobody can explain
It goes up every quarter and the explanation is always "we're growing." Sometimes that's true. Often it isn't.
The platform that quietly outgrew you
You're collecting more data than ever and the platform you set up two years ago is starting to buckle. Jobs run slower, things break more often, and adding anything new feels risky.

How We Engage

Three ways we plug in

3 services
01
Engineers who actually deliver
Most agencies sell you a senior on the call, then send a junior to do the work. We don't. Every engineer we send has been personally interviewed by us. Most we've worked with directly. They show up, they ship, and they don't disappear two weeks in. someone we've personally interviewed and worked with. No CV roulette.
Staff Augmentation
→
02
A platform built for what's coming
If your current setup was designed for last year's company, we'll build the one you need for the next three. No reference architectures pulled off a vendor blog. Designed for your business, not a logo slide. three years — not a patchwork of tools you'll regret.
Platform Delivery
→
03
An honest second opinion
You don't always need a rebuild. Sometimes you need someone senior to look at what you have and tell you the truth. We come in, we look hard, we write it up plainly. You decide what to do. and either fix it ourselves or hand you a roadmap your team can follow.
Audit & Repair
→

Recent Engagements

A couple of recent stories

More about our work →
Untangling analytics diagram — source systems flowing into a new data platform with dashboards
HR SaaS · Europe
Untangling analytics for a 100+ person SaaS company

Their team was struggling: only a handful of people understood the data, the same business entity was duplicated across many tables, and a single new report could take a month. We redesigned the data architecture so the numbers became consistent and the team could ship reports without wrestling the platform first.

Real estate analytics platform diagram — property, location, transactions and market data feeding a new platform and dashboard
Real Estate Analytics · US
A new data platform for a fast-growing analytics startup

The company had grown past the point where their original setup could keep up with the data they were collecting. We built a new data platform from the ground up — designed around how the business actually works today, with room to grow as they scale.

In Their Words

What clients say after we leave

References on request
“

They didn't just fix our pipelines — they pushed back on the requests that would have made things worse. The platform is faster, cheaper to run, and our team finally trusts the numbers. That's worth more than any deliverable list.

HD
Head of Data
HR SaaS · 100+ employees · Europe
“

We'd been burned by two previous consultancies. SouthRivers spent the first week telling us what wouldn't work before they wrote a line of code. That's when we knew we'd finally found a partner, not another vendor.

CT
CTO & Co-founder
Real Estate Analytics · US

Why We Exist

The way we wished agencies had treated us

SouthRivers Data was started by a former Enterprise Data Leader — someone who has hired a lot of consultancies, and been disappointed by most of them. We try to be the partner we couldn't find.

Anton, Founder of SouthRivers Data
Anton
Founder, SouthRivers Data · Formerly Head of Data

“I spent a decade on the buyer's side of these contracts. I know exactly what makes a consultancy feel safe to hire — and what makes one feel like a trap. We're trying to be the first kind.”

✓
No bench-warmers
Every engineer we send is someone we'd put on our own project. If they wouldn't pass our bar, they don't pass yours.
✓
Architects, not implementers
We don't fix one pipeline and call it strategy. We think about the whole platform — because that's where the real costs and savings live.
✓
We say no
The work we take is work we know we can do well. The work we turn down isn't a loss — it's a service to both of us.
✓
You own everything
Code, documentation, decisions, context. When we leave, you leave with the keys. No hostage situations, no lock-in.
✓
Plain language, no theatre
No jargon walls. No surprise invoices. No buried bad news. You'll always know where things stand, in words you'd use yourself.
✓
Founder-led engagements
A senior partner is involved in every project. You're not handed off to a junior account manager once the contract is signed.

Our Commitments

Things we put in the contract

4 promises
Reply within 24 hours
You write to us, you hear back the same business day — from someone who can actually answer your questions. No funnel, no SDR, no "let me check with my team."
First profiles in 48 hours
For staff augmentation, you'll see CVs of pre-vetted engineers within two business days — or we'll tell you honestly that we can't help on your timeline.
No-cost replacement
If an engineer isn't the right fit, for any reason, we replace them at our cost.
NDA-first, IP is yours
NDA signed before the first technical conversation. Every line of code, diagram, and decision belongs to you from day one. GDPR-compliant by default.

Common Questions

Before you book a call

The things people ask us most. If yours isn't here, just write — we read every email.

Ask us anything →
How quickly can you start?

For staff augmentation: typically 1–2 weeks from signed contract to first day. For platform engagements: 2–3 weeks to assemble the right team and complete discovery. If you need someone faster, tell us — we'll be honest about whether we can hit your date.

What size companies do you usually work with?

Most of our clients are between 50 and 500 people — past the spreadsheet phase, not yet at the point of having a 30-person data org. We've worked with smaller and larger, but that range is where we add the most value per euro.

Do you work fixed-fee or time-and-materials?

Both. Audits are fixed-fee — you know the price before you commit. Platform builds are usually phased: a fixed-fee discovery and architecture phase, then time-and-materials for implementation with a hard ceiling. Staff augmentation is monthly, cancel any time.

What if the engineer isn't the right fit?

We replace them at our cost. No questions, no contract gymnastics. In practice this almost never happens — because we don't propose people we wouldn't put on our own project. But if it does, it's our problem to fix, not yours.

Where are you based, and which time zones do you cover?

We're headquartered in Central Europe (CET). Our engineers cover full European business hours and a meaningful overlap with US East Coast. For US West Coast clients we schedule structured handoff windows rather than pretending to be 24/7.

Will we own the code and documentation?

Yes — all of it. Code, diagrams, runbooks, internal docs, decisions: yours from the moment it's committed. No proprietary frameworks you can't take with you. No managed-service trap. When we leave, you leave with the keys.

Do you sign an NDA before we share details?

Always, and before any technical conversation. Send us yours or we'll send ours — either works. We treat every engagement, including the ones that never sign a contract, with the same confidentiality.

You know what bad
looks like. Let's
do this differently.

Thirty minutes, no slides, no obligation. We'll listen, we'll be honest about whether we can help, and if we can't — we'll tell you who might.

Book a call with us Send us a message