[02] Engagements · Austin, TX · Remote US

CTO consulting: technical due diligence and CTO advisory

Project and advisory work with a start, an end and a written outcome. I review codebases, architecture, infrastructure, delivery and teams for investors, acquirers and founders, and I advise founders and engineering leaders who need a CTO's judgment without a CTO's calendar. I led 100+ engineers as VP of Software Engineering at Talent Systems, integrated acquired platforms after M&A, and I still read the code myself.

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Engineers led: 100+; VP of Software Engineering, Talent Systems
Years shipping: 20+; IBM to today
Uptime: 99.999%; Production platforms built
Infra cost cut: $10Ks/mo; Asset storage re-architecture, fractional CTO

What I do

Defined outcomes, written down

Each of these is scoped as a project or a block of advisory hours, with the deliverable agreed before work starts.

Technical due diligence

For a raise, an acquisition or a large enterprise deal. Code quality, architecture, infrastructure, security posture, delivery process, team and key-person risk, and spend. You get risks ranked by severity and a remediation plan, not a 60-page appendix.

Architecture and platform review

Will the current platform carry the next stage of growth? Build versus buy, cloud and data architecture across AWS and GCP, and a migration plan with sequencing and cost. I have re-architected asset storage and delivery systems that cut infrastructure costs by tens of thousands of dollars a month.

90-day stabilization plan

For a team or platform in trouble: outages, missed releases, a backlog that never shrinks. Diagnosis in the first two weeks, then a plan with owners, checkpoints and the release discipline that doubled sprint velocity and cut incidents by 80 to 90% at Talent Systems.

SOC 2 readiness

Led end to end for fractional clients: security controls, access policies, evidence trails and the operational habits that keep them true. Started early, it is a project. Started under deal pressure, it is months of delay.

AI and agentic engineering review

Is the team's use of coding agents a practice or a set of experiments? Review of specs, review gates, testing, guardrails, observability and spend, with a plan to make it something the whole team runs.

How I install it

CTO advisory hours

A standing block of hours each month for a founder or engineering leader: vendor contracts, hiring decisions, board prep, architecture calls, and the questions that would otherwise wait a week. No operational authority; a peer who has done the job.

How a due diligence review runs

Three steps, two to four weeks

[01]
Scope and access
Agree what the decision is, what matters most to it, and what I need: repositories, infrastructure, documentation, metrics and time with the team.
[02]
Review
Code, architecture, infrastructure, security, delivery process, team and spend. I read the code and talk to the engineers rather than relying on a questionnaire.
[03]
Report and plan
A written report with risks ranked, what each one would cost to fix, and a remediation plan. A verbal walkthrough with whoever is making the decision.

Who hires me for this

Investors, acquirers, founders and boards

Investors and acquirers

An independent technical read before the term sheet or the close, from someone who has integrated acquired platforms and knows which findings matter after the deal.

Founders ahead of diligence

Find the problems before the other side does, and have a credible plan for each one. The same review, run for you.

Founders without a CTO

A technical decision is coming and there is nobody in the room who has made it before. Advisory hours or a scoped review, and an honest answer about whether you need a fractional CTO instead.

Boards and executives

A second opinion on an engineering plan, a platform bet or an AI strategy, written in business terms and defensible in the room.

FAQ

Questions people ask before they reach out

The full list is on the FAQ page. For the ongoing version of this work, see fractional CTO engagements.

What engagement models do you offer?

Fractional CTO (1 to 3 days a week), interim CTO or VP of Engineering, project-based delivery, AI and agentic engineering enablement, and advisory or coaching for executives and engineering managers.

What industries have you worked with?

SaaS (B2B and B2C), marketplaces, e-commerce and retail, media and entertainment, AdTech and MarTech, healthcare and health tech, AI legal tech, creative agencies, and IoT and connected products. Example programs: an e-commerce marketplace on web and mobile, enterprise CMS platforms, subscription mobile apps with live video, and large multi-brand website portfolios.

What is your security stance?

Principle of least privilege, secrets hygiene, dependency audits, RBAC, and auditable change flows.

What size companies do you work with?

Startups and mid-sized companies with roughly 2 to 100+ engineers. I have led orgs across that range: 4 to 24 engineers at PublicSq., 10 to 24+ at Envoy, and 100+ as VP of Software Engineering at Talent Systems. Fractional clients have been SaaS, health tech, AI legal tech and consumer apps.

How do we start a conversation?

Share goals and constraints, we have a quick intro call, and you get a proposal with scope, timeline and pricing.

How do we get started?

Send a note through the contact page or book a 20-minute intro. Tell me the goal and the constraint. You get a short written proposal with scope, cadence and pricing. Advisory can start right away; larger programs usually start within one to two weeks.

Next move

Need a technical read before a decision?

Send the decision, the timeline and what you already know. You get a short written proposal with scope, deliverable and pricing. Advisory can start right away; reviews usually start within one to two weeks.

Get in touch Book a call