Technical Leadership

Technical Leadership

Fractional CTO and advisory services for companies navigating technical complexity.

Experienced Leadership Without the Full-Time Commitment

Organizations need senior technical leadership to guide engineering teams, define technology strategy, and drive business results. But hiring a full-time CTO or VP of Engineering isn’t always the right move—especially for startups, companies in transition, or teams facing temporary leadership gaps.

I provide fractional or interim technical leadership with 20+ years of experience building and scaling platforms that process billions in transactions.

Current Engagement

Fractional CTO | Stealth MarTech Startup | 2024-Present

Currently providing technical leadership for a stealth-mode MarTech startup:

  • Beta Product Launched — Shipped to early customers with positive feedback
  • Technical Strategy — Architecture decisions, technology roadmap, vendor selection
  • Code & Design Review — Ensuring quality and maintainability at early stage
  • Infrastructure Guidance — Cloud architecture, deployment pipelines, observability
  • Team Enablement — Mentoring founders on technical best practices

Engagement Model: 2x weekly meetings plus async code review and strategic guidance. Flexible commitment that adapts to company needs.

Service Offerings

1. Fractional CTO / Interim Technical Leadership

Situation: You need senior technical leadership, but you’re not ready to hire a full-time CTO. Or, you have a temporary leadership gap that needs to be filled.

Our Solution: Experienced, hands-on technical leadership on a fractional or interim basis. I can help you with:

  • Technology Roadmapping — Define where you’re going and how to get there
  • Architectural Decisions — Make the choices that are hard to undo correctly
  • Team Management — Lead engineering teams through growth and change
  • Technical Strategy — Align technology investments with business goals
  • Stakeholder Communication — Represent technology to board, investors, customers

Typical Engagement: 10-20 hours per week, flexible commitment (3-12 months)

Best For:

  • Startups needing technical leadership before Series A
  • Companies in transition between CTOs
  • Organizations evaluating build vs. buy decisions
  • Teams facing complex architectural decisions

2. Engineering Team Building & Mentoring

Situation: You need to grow your engineering team, but you don’t have the time or experience to do it effectively. You want to create a culture of excellence and continuous improvement.

Our Solution: I help you design your team structure, define roles and responsibilities, and create a hiring process that attracts top talent. I also provide mentoring and coaching to your existing team members to help them grow into leadership roles.

What I Deliver:

  • Team structure design aligned with product roadmap
  • Role definitions with clear expectations and growth paths
  • Hiring process design and interview training
  • Onboarding programs that get new hires productive quickly
  • 1-on-1 mentoring for senior engineers transitioning to leadership
  • Technical career ladder development

Recent Evidence: Grew ShareASale engineering team from 8 to 25+ engineers while maintaining velocity and quality.

3. Digital Transformation & Change Management

Situation: You’re trying to modernize your technology and engineering practices, but you’re facing resistance to change. You need help getting buy-in from your team and the rest of the organization.

Our Solution: I help you lead digital transformation initiatives with experience introducing:

  • New Technologies — Microservices, cloud platforms, modern frameworks
  • New Processes — Agile/Scrum, GitOps, DevSecOps, CI/CD
  • New Ways of Working — Remote-first collaboration, async communication, documentation culture
  • AI Adoption — Responsible AI governance, developer productivity tools, AI-powered features

Approach:

  • Build coalition of early adopters and champions
  • Communicate vision and benefits clearly to all stakeholders
  • Create safe environments for experimentation and learning
  • Measure and share wins to build momentum
  • Address concerns and resistance with empathy and data

AI Transformation Expertise: Served as AI Ambassador at ShareASale, achieving:

  • 200%+ velocity improvement for early adopters
  • AI governance framework balancing innovation and responsibility
  • Developer productivity programs with measurable impact
  • Executive-level communication on AI strategy and risk

4. M&A Technical Due Diligence & Integration

Situation: You’re considering acquiring a company, and you need to assess the quality of their technology and engineering team. Or, you’ve recently acquired a company and need to integrate their platform and team.

Our Solution: I provide technical due diligence services to help you evaluate potential acquisitions. I can also help you plan and execute the technical integration of acquired companies.

Due Diligence Focus:

  • Code quality and technical debt assessment
  • Infrastructure scalability and reliability
  • Team capability and retention risk
  • Technology stack compatibility and modernization needs
  • Security and compliance posture
  • Integration complexity and cost estimation

Integration Planning:

  • Platform consolidation roadmap with risk assessment
  • Team integration and cultural alignment
  • Technology stack rationalization
  • Data migration strategy
  • Customer impact minimization
  • Timeline and resource planning

Proven Track Record: Led multi-year platform consolidation at ShareASale/Awin Global following acquisition:

  • Integrated 4 companies (ShareASale, affilinet, zanox, awin) into unified platform
  • Protected 99.5% of revenue during migration
  • Zero customer-facing downtime across critical migrations
  • Managed stakeholder expectations across UK, Germany, and US teams

Background & Capabilities

Technical Leadership Experience

17+ Years | ShareASale/Awin Global | Principal Software Engineer/Architect

  • Led technical teams through multiple acquisitions and platform consolidations
  • Scaled engineering organization, designed roles and hired 10+ cross-functional team members
  • Established DevSecOps practices and modern development workflows
  • Served as AI Ambassador, driving adoption across organization
  • On-call leadership for revenue-critical infrastructure (250M monthly requests)

Current Work

Fractional CTO | Stealth MarTech Startup | 2025-Present

  • Shipping beta product with customers
  • Architecture, DevOps, code review, infrastructure decisions & implementation
  • 2x weekly meetings plus async guidance

AI Engineering Portfolio | December 2025

  • 2 live demos (Vercel, Cloudflare Workers)
  • Custom evaluation framework with measurable improvements (+15% precision)
  • Demonstrates hands-on capability alongside strategic thinking

Strategic Expertise

  • Cloud Strategy — AWS migration, multi-cloud architecture, edge computing
  • Platform Engineering — Microservices decomposition, API design, system reliability
  • Cost Optimization — 25% AWS reduction, 50% DataDog reduction through data-driven decisions
  • AI Strategy — Governance, developer productivity, application architecture
  • M&A Integration — Technical due diligence, platform consolidation, team integration

Communication & Collaboration

  • Executive Communication — Translate technical complexity for non-technical stakeholders
  • Distributed Teams — Led teams across US, UK, & EU through acquisitions
  • Crisis Leadership — 24-minute disaster recovery, data center failures, production incidents
  • Consensus Building — Navigate competing priorities across engineering, product, business

Why Choose Me?

Strategic Systems Thinker, Hands-On Executor

I don’t just advise from the sidelines. My current fractional CTO engagement has me in the code, reviewing PRs, and making architectural decisions. My recent AI portfolio demonstrates I can ship production systems, not just talk strategy.

Breadth of Experience

20+ years across:

  • High-scale SaaS platforms (250M+ monthly requests)
  • Revenue-critical systems ($1B+ annual transactions)
  • Multiple acquisitions and integrations
  • Team growth, Performance Management, Team Topologies, role design, recruiting, onboarding
  • Technology transformations (monolith to microservices, digital transformation, cloud migration)
  • AI adoption and governance

Crisis-Tested

When things break at 3 AM and millions in revenue are at risk, you need someone who stays calm and executes. I’ve recovered from:

  • Data center catastrophic failures (24-minute recovery)
  • Critical production incidents affecting thousands of users
  • Acquisition-driven platform consolidations under tight deadlines
  • Cost spirals requiring immediate intervention

Pragmatic, Not Dogmatic

I’ve seen too many “best practices” fail in the real world. I adapt approaches to your context:

  • Startup needing to ship fast vs. enterprise requiring compliance
  • Greenfield architecture vs. legacy system constraints
  • High-trust team vs. team building psychological safety

Current & Relevant

My fractional CTO work and recent AI portfolio projects keep me current with modern development practices:

  • Agentic development tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot)
  • Edge computing (Cloudflare Workers)
  • Modern frameworks (Next.js 16, React 19)
  • AI application patterns (RAG, streaming, evaluation)

Engagement Models

Fractional CTO (Ongoing)

Time Commitment: 10-20 hours per week
Duration: 3-12 months (flexible)
Best For: Startups, companies in transition, pre-Series A

Typical Responsibilities:

  • Weekly leadership meetings with founders/executives
  • Architecture decisions and code/design review
  • Technology roadmap and vendor evaluation
  • Team mentoring and hiring support
  • Board/investor communication on technology

Pricing: $5,000 - $10,000/month depending on time commitment

Interim Leadership (Project-Based)

Time Commitment: 20-40 hours per week
Duration: 1-6 months
Best For: Leadership gaps, transformation projects, crisis response

Typical Scenarios:

  • CTO departure requiring immediate coverage
  • M&A integration requiring dedicated leadership
  • Major technical transformation needing full-time focus
  • Crisis response (security incident, platform reliability)

Pricing: $10,000 - $20,000/month depending on scope

Advisory / Consulting (Flexible)

Time Commitment: 5-10 hours per week
Duration: 1-3 months
Best For: Specific decisions, architecture review, due diligence

Typical Engagements:

  • Technology stack decisions (build vs. buy, vendor selection)
  • Architecture review for scaling or security
  • Technical due diligence for acquisition
  • Team structure and hiring strategy
  • AI strategy and implementation planning

Pricing: $3,000 - $5,000/month or project-based pricing

Ideal Client Profile

You’re a good fit if:

  • You need senior technical leadership but aren’t ready for full-time hire
  • You’re navigating a transition (acquisition, rapid growth, leadership change)
  • You value strategic thinking backed by hands-on capability
  • You need someone who’s been on-call for revenue-critical systems
  • You want leadership that can communicate with both engineers and executives

You might not be a good fit if:

  • You need 40+ hours per week of dedicated leadership immediately
  • You’re looking for domain-specific expertise I don’t have
  • Your needs are primarily recruitment/HR versus technical strategy

How I Work

Initial Consultation (Week 1)

Free 1-hour conversation to understand your situation:

  • What’s the immediate challenge or opportunity?
  • What does success look like in 3-6 months?
  • What’s the team structure and technical landscape?
  • What constraints matter (budget, timeline, compliance)?

If we’re a good fit, I provide a clear proposal with scope, deliverables, and pricing.

Onboarding (Week 1-2)

I get up to speed quickly:

  • Review codebase, architecture, and documentation
  • Meet with key team members and stakeholders
  • Understand roadmap, priorities, and pain points
  • Assess technical debt and risk areas

Regular Cadence

Typical engagement rhythm:

  • Weekly leadership meetings (strategy, decisions, priorities)
  • Async communication (Slack, email) for day-to-day questions
  • Code/design review as needed
  • Monthly retrospectives to assess progress and adjust approach

Flexible Commitment

Your needs change. Engagements can scale up or down:

  • Ramp up during critical projects or transitions
  • Ramp down as internal team capability grows
  • Extend beyond initial commitment if valuable
  • Convert to full-time role if timing aligns

Get Started

Need technical leadership without the full-time commitment? Let’s talk.

Contact: Get in Touch · LinkedIn

Portfolio:

Note: I’m also open to full-time CTO, Director, or VP Engineering roles for the right opportunity. If you’re hiring and this resonates, let’s have that conversation.

Last Updated: December 2025