Work with me Here's what I actually do.
Most of my work comes through referrals. If someone sent you here, they probably told you the short version. This is the longer one.
Fractional CTO & Technical Advisory The senior engineer you lean on.
The retainer.
I'm the senior engineer non-technical founders call when they don't have one in-house. Architecture decisions, hiring calls, second opinions on CTO candidates or contract teams. AI adoption strategy and the gut-check before a big bet. Engineering leaders hire me too, when they want a peer to think out loud with.
This is the anchor. Most of my other work flows into or out of it. A review becomes a retainer. A retainer surfaces a rescue project. A rescue ends and the founder asks me to stay on for a few hours a week, just to have someone senior around.
This is for you if: you're a non-technical founder and you need a senior engineer you can lean on. Someone who can read the code your team is shipping and tell you if it's actually any good.
Retainer. A few hours a week.
Architecture Review & Second Opinions Pressure-test it before you sign.
The one-off.
You're about to commit to a decision you can't easily reverse. A raise, a rewrite, a lead-engineer hire, a new stack, a vendor signing, a cloud choice. I read through whatever's already in place, sit in on the right conversations, and come back with a written assessment of what's solid, what's risky, and what I'd change before you commit.
You get specific findings, specific recommendations, and a clear view of what I'd fix first.
This is for you if: you're about to commit to a decision you can't easily reverse, and you want an independent senior engineer to pressure-test it before you sign.
Fixed scope, fixed fee. 1–2 weeks.
Hands-on Rescue & Modernisation I go in and fix it.
The project.
Hands-on work, often after the review. Legacy modernisation, cloud migration, critical third-party integrations, shoring up security findings, rescuing a codebase the team can't ship out of. I work incrementally on main. You see progress in days.
Usually this follows an architecture review. By the time the review is done, I already know where the bodies are buried.
This is for you if: your team is stuck on a codebase that used to work and doesn't any more, and you need a senior engineer who can actually go in and fix it instead of writing a report about it.
Weekly rate. 4–12 weeks.
Security & Cryptography Review I've built this stuff. I can read yours.
The deep dive.
I review authentication, encryption, key management, and data-handling architecture. Kept narrow on purpose. I've implemented cryptographic systems from first principles: key management servers, mobile crypto clients, libsodium bindings, KMIP protocol implementations. The code's on GitHub.
I do this standalone for security-sensitive SaaS, fintech, and healthtech. Or I bolt it onto an architecture review when the system leans hard on cryptographic claims.
This is for you if: your system depends on "secure by design" claims and you need an expert who's actually implemented this stuff to pressure-test them.
Fixed scope, fixed fee. 1–2 weeks.