Is FinOps really an architecture problem, not just a finance one?
Yes - and this is one of the most underappreciated aspects of cloud cost management. The decisions that drive 80% of your cloud bill are architectural: which compute family, what storage tier, how services communicate, whether you're using managed vs. self-hosted components.
Finance can report the numbers, but they can't change the architecture. That's why FinOps needs engineering at the table from day one. When architects make cost-aware design decisions - choosing event-driven patterns over always-on compute, or picking the right database engine for the workload - the savings compound over time without ongoing manual optimization.
This question reflects common advisory themes. It is editorially curated, not sourced from individual conversations.
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