BP Brian Phillips Autonomous CTO

Software delivery recovery

Know what you own.
Fix what is failing.
Take back control.

I help founders and operators recover stalled, expensive, or agency-dependent software products. The work starts with evidence and ends with an engineering operation your company understands and controls.

Explore the Rescue Audit How the recovery works
For founders, owners, investors, and operating executives Remote engagements

Senior engineering work across

  • Tommy Car Wash Systems
  • Nike
  • Amazon
  • Toyota
  • PepsiCo
  • NAV Canada

01 / The situation

The problem is bigger than a late release.

When leadership cannot tell what is working, who controls the accounts, or whether the next release is safe, the company has lost the ability to make technical decisions.

A new agency can add people. It cannot create truth from the outside. Recovery begins by building an evidence-backed record of the product, the delivery operation, and the risks the business is carrying.

01

Progress exists only in status meetings.

Leadership cannot verify what shipped, what remains, or why the plan moved again.

02

The vendor controls critical access.

Repositories, cloud accounts, signing identities, domains, and deployment knowledge sit outside company control.

03

Every release depends on heroics.

Testing is inconsistent, rollback is uncertain, and a routine change can become a business incident.

04

No one can explain the real run-rate.

Agency fees, cloud spend, tooling, and rework accumulate without a decision-quality view of cost.

02 / The first decision

Buy clarity before you buy more development.

The Engineering Rescue Audit is an independent, fixed-scope engagement. In two to three weeks, leadership receives an evidence-backed view of what it owns, what is risky, and what deserves attention during the next 90 days.

See the audit scope and deliverables

Decision record / delivered

  1. 01Executive risk briefingWhat leadership needs to decide now
  2. 02Ownership and access mapWho controls every critical system
  3. 03Delivery and technical findingsClaims tied to evidence and consequence
  4. 04Prioritized 90-day roadmapSequenced actions, owners, and dependencies

03 / The difference

A recovery engagement, not another dependency.

I work on the client side of the table. The objective is to improve the company’s ability to see, decide, and deliver without making my continued presence a hidden requirement.

Ground truth

Evidence before prescription

Recommendations follow repository, infrastructure, account, delivery, and cost evidence. The audit does not begin with a predetermined diagnosis.

Ownership

Client control from the start

Repositories, accounts, infrastructure, payment methods, and operating knowledge remain under company control.

Governance

Automation with hard boundaries

Appropriate routine work can be automated. Production, money, identity, security, legal, and destructive decisions stay with people.

Continuity

A useful exit is part of the work

Decision records, runbooks, onboarding guidance, access records, and continuity documentation are maintained as operating assets.

04 / The commercial path

Each stage earns the next.

No build is proposed before the audit establishes what is true. No production automation is introduced before the operating foundation can support it safely.

Stage 012–3 weeks

Engineering Rescue Audit

Establish ownership, delivery reality, risk, cost visibility, and the next 90 days.

$12,500fixed fee
Audit details
Stage 028–12 weeks

Foundation Build

Restore company control and make delivery repeatable, observable, documented, and safe to operate.

$45K–$75Kstarting range
Stage 03Ongoing

Autonomous Operations

Introduce governed routines for appropriate work, with senior judgment retained at high-risk decision points.

$4K–$8Kper month

Fractional or Autonomous CTO leadership can continue where the evidence and operating need support it.

See the operating approach

05 / The boundary

Automation handles appropriate work. People retain consequential judgment.

Tools may investigate, draft, test, review, report, and propose. They do not approve their own production access or make unilateral decisions that can materially harm the company.

Read the governance model
Human approval requiredPolicy / enforced
  • 01Production promotions and app-store releases
  • 02Payments, billing, identity, and authorization
  • 03Destructive changes and production data operations
  • 04Security-sensitive, legal, and spending decisions

06 / Fit

Built for a real operating problem.

Strong fit

  • A real software product with revenue, funding, or material operating dependence
  • Five-figure monthly delivery cost or comparable business exposure
  • Missed launches, vendor opacity, unstable releases, or unclear ownership
  • A decision-maker willing to provide the access required for an independent audit

Not the right fit

  • Idea-stage product development
  • A predetermined conclusion about a vendor or team
  • Deadline, savings, or security guarantees
  • Production automation without testing, rollback, and human approval gates

07 / The operator

Senior technical judgment, directly accountable.

I’m Brian Phillips. I have spent more than fifteen years building and leading mobile, web, cloud, and delivery work where operational failure is visible to the business.

My background includes engineering leadership on transaction-critical systems deployed across more than 250 locations, work for global brands, open-source drone software, and the practical reality of inheriting systems built by someone else.

More about my experience GitHub

Engineering Rescue Audit

Before you fund another uncertain month, establish what is true.

Tell me what leadership cannot verify about the product, the current team or vendor, and the path to production.

Start a serious conversation