Cloud Propeller

Builders of Infrastructure That
Stays Out of Your Way

We build, operate, and stand behind the infrastructure our clients rely on — keeping it fast, stable, recoverable, and diligently cared for, so their teams can work, their businesses can keep moving, and their full attention can stay where it belongs: serving their own customers.

Founded in 2016 Engineer-Owned Operator-Led Ohio-Based
Cloud Propeller workspace
Our Story

Built by Engineers Who Were Done Compromising

Cloud Propeller was founded by a group of engineers led by Petar Smilajkov, who had spent years building and operating cloud infrastructure for service providers whose business-driven decisions never quite allowed us to test the limits of what client-centric, high-performance architecture could do.

In 2016, we set out to build the infrastructure company we wished existed — engineer-led, infrastructure-first, deeply accountable to clients, and unwilling to hide behind ticket queues, stale hardware, or vague platform promises.

A decade later, this is still how we operate. The engineers making platform decisions are close enough to real client workloads to understand the consequences of those decisions — and accountable enough to improve them when something can be better.

We refresh hardware deliberately, choose performance-oriented components, build in headroom, test designs under real workloads, and pay attention to the details most providers bury behind product names.

Our job is to make the platform fast, stable, resilient, and quietly well-run. When needed, clients can directly reach engineers who know the platform inside out — and who are familiar with the actual workloads running on it. Every engagement starts with context, history, and a deep understanding of the systems our clients trust us to run.

Our Mission

Our Mission

To make critical infrastructure quiet, dependable, and invisible in the best possible way — fast when it matters, recoverable when it counts, and owned by the people who built it.

How We Operate

Engineer-Operated, Not Ticket-Routed

Cloud Propeller is operated by the same engineers who design, maintain, and support the platform. Clients are never passed through layers of disconnected support tiers—they work with people who understand the infrastructure and can act with context and authority.

Direct Engineering Access

Clients work with engineers who understand the platform deeply and can make operational decisions without unnecessary handoffs.

No Scripted Escalation

There are no layers of escalation to push through. When something matters, the right engineer is on it quickly—with enough context to act.

Operational Ownership

We design, operate, monitor, maintain, and support the entire stack we sell. Accountability stays with the engineers who run it.

Our Principles

The Standards We Hold Under Pressure

Our principles are the constants in the system: the standards that keep our decisions stable when the environment around them gets complex.

01

Integrity

The platform, the invoice, and the conversation all match reality. We do not overstate capabilities, hide constraints, or make promises the infrastructure cannot keep.

02

Honesty

We tell clients the truth, even when the answer is inconvenient. If something is broken, delayed, risky, or more complex than expected, we say so plainly and work the problem directly.

03

Stewardship

We treat the infrastructure our clients trust us with as something to be cared for, not merely operated. Every design choice and support action should serve the reliability, continuity, and long-term health of the systems our clients depend on.

Our Values

What Is Important to Us

These aren't rules — they're the priorities we return to when more than one answer is defensible.

Transparency

Decisions, incidents, and limitations get explained plainly — including the parts that aren't flattering to us.

Responsibility

Ownership doesn't stop at our network edge. If we're upstream of the issue, we're upstream of the fix.

Rigor

Correct before clever. We test, document, and plan with the conservative margins production deserves.

Urgency

When it matters, we move. Urgency means the next correct action — not the loudest or fastest one.

Courage

We will replace a platform, redesign a network, or recommend the harder answer when the easy one is wrong.

Curiosity

Strange behavior is always a clue. We don't stop at the workaround — we stop when the system actually makes sense.

Want to Work With Us?

Tell us what you're running. We'll go from there.

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