Fractional CTO & Engineering Leadership
I'm the CTO you bring in when delivery has stalled.
Fifteen years leading mobile and full-stack engineering, mostly as the person who walks into a stuck or messy project and gets it shipping again. Founders and operators hire me to steady the product, deal with a vendor that isn't working out, and give the team a clear technical call to follow.
Work for
Tommy Car Wash Systems · Nike · Amazon · Toyota · PepsiCo · NAV Canada
Fractional CTO
You don't always need a full-time CTO.
Plenty of companies need real technical leadership long before they can justify a full-time executive. That gap is what I fill.
I make the hard calls, keep the team and any outside vendors honest, and stay on the hook for whether the product actually ships. I set direction, decide what to build versus buy, run planning, and tell leadership the truth about where things stand. When it helps, I get into the code myself. The goal is always to leave the team able to run without me.
- DirectionStrategy, the roadmap, platform choices, and the call on what to build versus buy.
- Teams & vendorsI hold your engineers and any outside agencies to a real standard and a real schedule.
- AccountabilityI own the outcome. If the product doesn't ship, that's on me too, not just on a report I handed over.
- TranslationI keep leadership and engineering speaking the same language about what's actually possible.
What I Solve
Most people call me when something is already on fire.
Delivery has stalled
Deadlines keep slipping and nobody can explain why. Confidence inside and outside the team is gone. I find the real bottleneck and get things moving again.
The vendor isn't delivering
You're paying an agency or an offshore team and you've lost visibility into what they're actually doing. I step in on your side and hold them to it.
The product is unstable
Releases keep breaking and every change feels like a gamble. I get the thing stable so shipping stops being a coin flip.
No senior technical voice
Decisions stall because nobody owns the technical call. I give your team, and your board, someone whose judgment they can trust.
Scaling is breaking things
What worked when you were small is now the thing slowing you down. I rework the architecture so growth stops costing you sleep.
Engineering and the business have drifted apart
The roadmap says one thing and the codebase is doing another. I get the two pointed back in the same direction so the work pays off.
Leadership & Recovery
I steady things before I change them.
The reflex when you walk into a mess is to start rewriting. I don't. First I get an honest picture of what's going on and stop the immediate bleeding. The bigger structural fixes come after, once shipping is safe again.
Assess
A straight read on the code, the team, and whatever vendors are involved. What's actually broken, what's about to break, and what to deal with first.
Stabilize
Get releases under control and reorder the work so the things that matter ship first, and ship on time.
Strengthen
Clean up the architecture, raise the bar on how the team works, and make sure none of it falls over after I leave.
Engagement
A few ways to work together.
Technical Advisory
Someone experienced on call for the big decisions: strategy, hiring, architecture, the things you don't want to get wrong. We talk regularly and I'm there when something comes up.
Fractional CTO
I run your engineering part-time and own the result: direction, the team, vendors, delivery. For when you need a real technical lead but can't justify a full-time one yet.
Architecture & Delivery Audit
I dig into your product, your code, and how the team ships, then hand you a plain-English report and a prioritized list of what to fix. The quickest way to find out where you really stand.
Delivery Recovery
A focused push to get a stalled or failing project shipping again, with me on the hook for the result.
Most of this runs as a monthly retainer or a fixed-scope project. I only take on a few clients at once so I can stay close to the actual work.
Track Record
Work that's held up.
A product running across 250+ locations, used by 2M+ people
At Tommy Car Wash Systems I lead the team behind the consumer app and the POS system running in more than 250 locations. These have to work on every transaction, so there's no room for sloppy releases.
$300K a week, freed up by automating a manual bottleneck
At Two Barrels, a manual filing process was capping how fast the business could grow. I replaced it with automation that opened up roughly $300K a week in new revenue capacity.
Shipped on deadlines that couldn't move
At 14Four I shipped the interactive experience for PepsiCo's Super Bowl halftime campaign, plus AR and VR work for Nike, Amazon, and Toyota. When the launch date is the Super Bowl, the date doesn't move.
Ran teams, and the vendors around them
I've managed in-house and distributed engineers, ridden herd on outside vendors, and built the CI/CD setups that make shipping boring in the good way. That's been at big companies and at startups barely off the ground.
A track record outside the day job too
I maintained the open-source MAVSDK-Swift project and co-founded a dev agency with clients on two continents, growing one client from about 1K to 10K monthly visits along the way.
How I Work
I use AI to move faster, not to cut corners.
I lean on AI-assisted tooling pretty heavily, but in a way that gives leadership more visibility into the work, not less.
In practice that means planning, building, review, and testing all run through a workflow with clear checkpoints, so things move fast where it's safe and slow down where it isn't. I use it on real client work and shipping products, not on toy projects.
I've also run remote and distributed teams for most of my career, so coordinating people and vendors across time zones is just how I work. The habit of writing things down that comes with that tends to keep delivery on track no matter where people sit.
Clients & Work
Companies and clients I've worked with.
About
I'm the person you bring in when the technical side has gotten away from you.
I've spent fifteen-plus years in mobile and full-stack engineering, working as a development manager, a senior iOS engineer, and a CTO, at big companies and at startups that were barely off the ground. The thread through all of it is steadying things. I walk into engineering that's stalled or messy or just leaderless, and I get founders and execs back to a place where the product ships on a schedule they can trust.
Some of how I work comes from outside the office. I've run operations off-grid and I'm an FAA-certified drone pilot, both situations where you plan ahead, adapt when things change, and accept that there's nobody above you to escalate to. I bring that same mindset to a product in trouble. Somebody has to own the call, and I'm comfortable being that person.
FAQ
Questions I get a lot.
What is a fractional CTO?
A fractional CTO is an experienced technical leader who runs your engineering part-time instead of as a full-time hire. You get someone to own technical strategy, lead the team and any vendors, and stay accountable for delivery, for a fraction of the cost and commitment of a full-time executive.
When should a company hire a fractional CTO?
It usually makes sense when you need senior technical leadership but can't justify a full-time CTO yet: an early-stage startup, a founder without a technical co-founder, or a company whose product has stalled and needs someone to take ownership. If decisions are stuck because nobody owns the technical call, it's time.
What's the difference between a fractional CTO and a full-time CTO?
The work is the same; the commitment isn't. A fractional CTO gives you the same strategy, leadership, and accountability a full-time CTO would, but part-time and on a flexible arrangement. It fits until the company is big enough that the role needs someone in the seat every day.
How do you fix a stalled or failing software project?
I start by getting an honest read on the code, the team, and any vendors, then stop the immediate problems so things start shipping again. The bigger architecture and process fixes come after, once delivery is stable. I think of it as assess, stabilize, strengthen.
Can you take over an underperforming development agency or offshore team?
Yes. A lot of my work is stepping in as the client's technical authority when an agency or offshore team isn't delivering: reviewing what they've built, setting clear standards and a real schedule, and holding them to it, or helping you move on if that's the better call.
How much does a fractional CTO cost, and how are engagements priced?
Engagements are set up as monthly retainers or fixed-scope projects rather than hourly billing. The audit is a fixed fee, advisory and fractional CTO work are monthly, and recovery projects are scoped to the situation. I take on a small number of clients at a time.
What kind of companies and stages do you work with?
Startup founders, small and mid-sized businesses, and enterprise teams, often ones under pressure from a stalled product, an unstable codebase, or a vendor that isn't working out. I've worked across both large enterprise initiatives and early-stage startups.
Do you work remotely?
Yes. I've led remote and distributed teams for most of my career, coordinating engineers and vendors across time zones. Remote is the default in how I work, and the habits that come with it tend to keep delivery on track.
What technologies do you specialize in?
My background is mobile and full-stack engineering: Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, and React Native on mobile, plus backend and cloud work on AWS. Beyond specific tools, the focus is architecture, CI/CD, release discipline, and the technical strategy that ties engineering to the business.
Tell me what's going wrong.
If your product's stalling, your vendor isn't working out, or you just need someone experienced to own the hard technical decisions for a while, send me a few lines about what's going on. I'll tell you straight whether I'm the right person to help.