Work with me
As a startup leader with a business to grow, technical minutiae should be the last thing on your mind. That’s where I come in.
Whether you need acute challenges solved today or a firm foundation to build on tomorrow, let me save you time, cash, and energy by navigating your technical pitfalls and get things on a path to success.
Experience
Over two decades in the startup world, I’ve had the good fortune to:
- run multiple global engineering organizations
- hire and onboard hundreds of developers, managers, and leaders
- teach development, management, and ethics to thousands of students
- design, build, and ship products serving millions of monthly users
- lead multiple acquisition processes
- manage multi-year plans and multi-million dollar budgets
- implement a range of security, risk, and compliance programs
When urgent incidents need resolution or fleeting opportunities need to be seized, having been-there, done-that experience to call on is an invaluable advantage (and don’t just take my word for it).
How it works
As we explore the possibility of working together, we’ll:
- Start with a confidential call to get introduced and talk scope
- reach an agreement outlining the strategic goals, deliverables, and timeline for the engagement
You’ll also get frequent (typically weekly) updates from me during the course of the engagement, as well as a final report with recommendations and next steps for the team to build on.
Services
I can support your leadership team or individual managers in one of several operating models. We’ll talk options on our introductory call, but this typically involves some mix of:
- Consulting. We work together to address a specific organizational or technical challenge that’s holding your team back.
- Advising. We work on a recurring basis to grow the business and scale systems and people.
- Fractional leadership. I take on leadership responsibilities directly until you’re ready to hire a full-time leader
Consulting
Maybe it’s software quality, CI/CD performance, or preparing for an acquisition: there’s a problem holding you back, and you need it solved. With both deep technical abilities and “been there” in a variety of operating environments, chances are I’ve seen it before–and can help make it go away for good.
Advising
Situations arise! If you’re facing an existential challenge or just need a sounding board as your business grows and role expands, I can lend both pattern recognition and an outside perspective to help keep you on sound technical footing.
Fractional CTO
A fractional leader is just as valuable laying the right foundation for an early-stage venture as in smoothing over an existing leader’s departure.
Tapping my experience on a part-time basis helps founders and companies maintain strong technical direction until they’re ready to bring someone on full time.
FAQs
How do we measure success?
Successful engagements should:
- Massively accelerate your business’s trajectory
- Pay for themselves
If a project doesn’t have the potential to shave months or years off the time needed to get a product to market or double the size of a team, I’ll respectfully decline to take it on.
Likewise, the return on investment on every engagement should be material–if I don’t believe the value is there, that’s another no-go.
What does it cost?
We’ll discuss compensation based on the nature of the business and the engagement–but yes–equity compensation is up for discussion.
Philosophy
Shipping great software starts and ends with the people involved. If they’re trained, empowered, and aligned, good things happen–and no amount of technical wizardry will patch over the gap if they aren’t.
Every project is an opportunity to build skills and habits, and teaching teams to fish (so to speak) is a key part of any successful engagement. My README and leadership notes are good places to get a sense of what that means to me.