If your team is working hard but delivery is slow and unpredictable, I can help you find out why.
I've been leading software teams for 21 years, from small teams with remote members to large projects with teams in several countries. I join a few teams at a time, usually for a few hours a week, until your team is ready.
90-minute call, $500. Refundable in one click.
- A roadmap that keeps slipping
- One person everyone waits on
- Big calls still waiting
- A roadmap you can trust
- Nobody waits on one person
- The big calls made each week
What I usually find
The big calls keep waiting
When there's no senior technical person, the big calls either wait or get made by whoever happens to be closest. The team often has the right intent, but not yet the experience for the decision in front of it.
Slow delivery, and nobody knows why
That's usually where I start: what's really done, what isn't, and what's in the way.
Estimates that add up
I also push back on estimates that don't add up. On one project, a quote for four developers for three weeks came down to about one developer for three to four weeks.
A note from me
Most product delays aren't tech problems. They're truck number problems. When one person becomes the bottleneck across an entire module, everyone slows down.
- Sachin
Some of the work
On a client's telehealth platform, the development team was 13 people across three countries. Over three years I helped bring it down to a remote team of four, by simplifying the architecture and the tech stack, upskilling the team, improving the process, and automating what we could. Less overhead made delivery twice as fast.
A New York based VoIP company had spent nine months on an AI project that was moving at a crawl: self-hosting ASR models and LLMs for transcribing and summarizing calls, to keep costs down at scale. I recruited the right specialists, and it shipped in two months. I also drove the GPU batch-processing optimizations.
At a New York based VoIP company, an in-house team and a group of contractors were working on six or more product lines at the same time, from AI call transcription to a mobile calling app. I ran delivery across all of them, hired for the skills the team was missing, and when a developer left, handled the handover and kept the work moving.
Clients stay unnamed here. I'm happy to walk you through any of these on a call.
How I work
What I look at first
What you're trying to achieve, and where things really stand. The quality of the work so far, and how the ground reality compares with how it feels to you. That can go either way: sometimes the work is worse than it looks, and sometimes it's much better than it feels, simply because it isn't finished yet. The skills the job needs against the skills on the team. Whether your timeline and budget estimates are realistic. And the gap between what I hear from leadership and what I hear from the people doing the work. That gap usually tells me the most.
Progress everyone can see
Status updates that say what's really done, in enough detail to act on, and a working build you can try every week. A lot of the misunderstandings I see start with updates that skip the details.
People who've solved it before
I look for people and tools that have already solved the exact problem you're struggling with, not just a good developer, a good marketing team, or a good CRM. A job post that says “great machine learning engineer” vs “a machine learning engineer who has worked on audio models, and plays a musical instrument” can turn a 3-month project into a 3-week sprint.
A team that doesn't need me
Knowledge moves to your team, and if you need a full-time CTO, I help you find the right one. By then, no part of your product should depend on one person, including me.
How we'd start
Everything starts with one paid call. By the end of it, we'll both know whether there's more to do, and which of the other two options fits.
A first call
- 90 minutes with me, working on your actual problem.
- Real answers and clear next steps on the calls themselves.
- Up to two follow-ups, with you or the people on your team.
- If it wasn't worth it, one click refunds the full $500.
The right first step for nearly everyone.
Some teams take the solutions and run with them on their own. That's a perfectly good outcome.
A fixed-price review
A close look at the team, the code, and the roadmap, over two to three weeks.
- What's really done, what isn't, and what's in the way
- Whether your timeline and budget estimates are realistic
- Solutions to the problems we find, worked out together with you and your team
Your fractional CTO
A few hours a week on the decisions that matter. The monthly range depends on how much of my time you need.
- Architecture, hiring, and vendor calls
- Closing the gap between what leadership hears and what's happening on the ground
- A planned hand-off to your own team
Bootstrapped and pre-revenue? Book a 40-minute Founder Call for $200. It doesn't include follow-up calls, and the same one-click refund applies.
Fair questions
Because it's working time on your problem, and you get real answers on the call itself. It also covers up to two follow-ups, including calls with people on your team if needed.
Maybe, in time. Until then, I join for a few hours a week and make the big calls with you. When you're ready for a full-time CTO, I help you find the right one.
Rarely. Fixing what's broken is usually easier and better than wholesale replacement. Sometimes all that's needed is adding an expert with the missing skill set. Replacement is the last option.
Sometimes, for a tricky performance problem or a code review. Mostly I make sure the right people are writing it, and that what they build is what you actually need.
Book your first call
Pick a time that works for you. Bring whoever on your team knows the day-to-day best.
$500 for the first call
- 90 minutes with me, working on your actual problem.
- Real answers and clear next steps on the calls themselves.
- Up to two follow-ups, with you or the people on your team.
- If it wasn't worth it, one click refunds the full $500.
Need more than one person? Rawzor is my firm, a small senior team of experts that works alongside your people. Explore rawzor.com →