Fractional CTO for Startups
25+ years of engineering leadership, 7 patents, and battle-tested architecture expertise — delivered fractionally. No long-term contracts. No bloated teams. Plus a free infrastructure package when you hire me.
Build it right the first time
Technical Architecture & Strategy
Most startups don't fail because of bad ideas — they fail because of bad architecture decisions made under pressure. I help you avoid the expensive mistakes and build systems that scale.
- End-to-end architecture reviews and technology stack selection
- Scalability planning — from MVP to millions of users
- Monolith vs. microservices decisions based on your actual stage
- API design, database architecture, and infrastructure planning
- Technical debt assessment and remediation roadmaps
- Vendor evaluation and build-vs-buy analysis
Technical Architecture & Strategy
Do more with less
Cost Optimization
I've run a production platform serving 190+ countries on $650/month AWS. I know what real cost optimization looks like — and it's not about cutting corners.
- Cloud infrastructure audit and right-sizing
- Team efficiency analysis and restructuring
- Eliminating redundant tools and services
- Optimizing CI/CD pipelines and deployment costs
- License consolidation and vendor negotiations
- Building lean development workflows
Cost Optimization
A technical partner who gets it
Founder Mental Stability
Being a technical founder is lonely. You're making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information, often without anyone who truly understands the technical implications. I've been there.
- Sounding board for major technical decisions
- Reality checks on timelines, budgets, and scope
- Conflict resolution between business and engineering
- Strategic planning without the emotional baggage
- Honest feedback — not what you want to hear, what you need to hear
- Navigating pivots, layoffs, and tough conversations
Founder Mental Stability
Included at no extra cost when you hire me as your Fractional CTO, mentor, or advisor
Free Infrastructure Package
You get a complete self-hosted DevOps infrastructure — production-grade tooling that would typically cost $2,000–5,000/month from commercial providers.
Self-Hosted GitLab
Full GitLab instance with generous CI/CD runner resources — no usage limits, no per-seat surprises
Sentry Error Tracking
Self-hosted Sentry for real-time error monitoring, alerting, and performance tracking across all your services
Loki Log Aggregation
Centralized log collection and querying — search across all your services in one place
Grafana Dashboards
Comprehensive monitoring dashboards for infrastructure metrics, application performance, and business KPIs
Additional DevOps Tools
Complementary infrastructure components tailored to your stack — container registries, artifact storage, and more
Real results from real AI transformation
AI in Action: The AppMaster Story
Staff Reduction
People Doing Work of 25
Tokens Processed Monthly
Platform Uptime Maintained
In 2025, I transitioned AppMaster.io from a 25-person team to a 2-person AI-augmented operation. Every function — engineering, QA, support, content — was restructured around AI workflows. The platform continued serving users in 190+ countries without any degradation in service.
The FCTO Model
Senior technical leadership without the full-time cost
Traditional Startup
- CEO / Founder
- VP of Engineering ($180-250K)
- 3-5 Senior Developers ($150-200K each)
- Product Manager ($120-160K)
- DevOps Engineer ($140-180K)
$800K - $1.4M / year
FCTO Model
- CEO / Founder
- Fractional CTO (fraction of full-time cost)
- 1 Senior Engineer
70% lower technical team cost
The FCTO model works because senior leadership multiplies output. One experienced architect makes better decisions than five mid-level developers debating in Slack.
Who This Is For
I work best with founders who are ready to move fast and think lean.
Seed-Stage Startups
Need architecture that scales without over-engineering. Want senior technical guidance without hiring a full-time CTO.
Growing Startups
Hit scaling challenges. Tech debt is slowing you down. Need someone who's been through hypergrowth to help navigate.
Pivoting Companies
Changing direction and need to rebuild the tech stack. Want to do it right this time with battle-tested guidance.
AI-Curious Startups
Want to integrate AI into your product but don't know where to start. Need practical guidance, not theoretical frameworks.
Let's Build Your Technical Foundation
Book a free 30-minute call. No pitch, no pressure — just a conversation about your startup's technical needs.