Your lead engineer, embedded in your team

Architecture · Strategy · Daily code

You don't need a CTO who won't touch the keyboard. You don't need another freelancer who disappears mid-sprint. You need one senior engineer who owns your entire technical stack — someone who makes executive-level calls AND ships code every single day.

Let's Talk About Your Team

This is what it actually looks like

When your team doesn't have a technical partner.

You're on your third freelancer this year. The first one disappeared mid-sprint. The second one built something that technically works but nobody can maintain. Now you're onboarding someone new again, explaining the same business logic for the third time, watching them nod along while you wonder if they actually get it.

You're in a meeting and someone asks "can we add this feature by Q2?" and you have no idea. You can't evaluate timelines, you can't assess tradeoffs, and the person you're paying to know these things gives you a different answer every time.

Your app goes down on a Saturday night. You text your developer. No response for 6 hours. When they finally reply, they need another 4 hours to figure out what broke because they don't remember how the system fits together. You're sitting at dinner calculating revenue lost per minute.

The real problem isn't that you need a developer. And it's not that you need a CTO. It's that the role you actually need doesn't fit standard job descriptions — you need someone who thinks at the executive level but executes at the individual contributor level, every single day.

A nerdy, bald programmer with glasses smiling at you like he knows what's going on.

27 years. 20+ startups. Every mistake your next hire is about to make.

I started programming at 15. Since then I've been the technical backbone of startup after startup — watching brilliant ideas die from bad engineering and great engineering die from bad business. I've seen every way it goes wrong.

Now I embed in small teams as the lead engineer. I own the architecture, the strategy, and the code itself. Not as a consultant who advises and leaves — as a partner who shows up every day and builds.

The Full-Stack Partnership

One engineer. Your entire technical stack. Architecture, strategy, and daily code — all owned by someone who's done this 20+ times.

Embedded Lead Engineer

Architecture, strategy, and daily code — one person, fully embedded

I join your team as the lead engineer. I own the technical vision, make the architectural calls, and write production code every single day. No management layers, no handoffs, no disappearing acts.

  • Full-stack development — Python, databases, DevOps, mobile, web. The whole thing.
  • Executive-level technical strategy — architecture decisions, build-vs-buy, scaling plans.
  • Daily hands-on code — production features, not PowerPoint decks.
  • 100% code ownership from day one. Everything I build is yours.
Roster: I only take on 3 clients at a time. When the 3 seats are full, the door is closed until one opens.
$15,000/mo 3-month minimum · 6-month maximum · 3-client roster
Ask About a Seat

How The Full-Stack Partnership Works

No discovery calls that turn into sales pitches. No 30-slide decks. Here's what actually happens:

1

Embed

I join your team. Read every line of code. Understand the business, the product, the people.

2

Assess

Identify what's broken, what's working, what's urgent. Give you a straight answer about where things stand.

3

Own

Take full ownership of the technical stack. Architecture, infrastructure, daily development. It's mine now.

4

Build

Ship features. Solve problems. Make executive calls AND write production code — every single day.

5

Evolve

Grow the technical foundation as your business grows. The code is yours from day one — no lock-in, ever.

Let's Talk About Your Team

No commitment. 20 minutes. Straight answers.

What it looks like when it works

This is what changes when you stop cycling through freelancers and get a real technical partner.

It's Tuesday morning. You open Slack and there's a message: "Shipped the new dashboard last night. Also noticed the payment webhook was failing silently — fixed that too. Here's what I'm thinking for the API redesign, let's talk when you have 20 minutes." You close Slack and go back to the thing you're actually good at.

A potential partner asks "what's your tech stack?" and instead of fumbling, you say "let me connect you with Seth — he owns all of that." The call happens, it's impressive, and the partnership closes.

You haven't thought about server uptime in months. Because you don't need to.

Things I've Built

27 years, 20+ startups. Here are a few that worked.

🎸

Guitar Factory

Built a web-based guitar configurator that merged digital and physical processes. Custom designs turned into CAD files for CNC machines, graphics for plotters, and shipping labels — all from one system.

CAD Integration Manufacturing Automation
⌚

Wearable Tech ML

Went from zero hardware experience to bit-packing BLE, building mobile apps, and rolling out a real-time training pipeline in the cloud — all in about a year.

Embedded C Neural Networks Hardware
📸

License Plate Reader

Built a "better license plate reader" using off-the-shelf cameras at lower resolution, mapping vehicle features (make, model, shape, color, dents) for parking garages in cramped downtown areas.

Computer Vision Python ML

Questions I Actually Get Asked

What if you leave?

With freelancers you're already dependent on someone with zero commitment to your business. I embed specifically to stay. The 3-month minimum exists so we both take the partnership seriously. And everything I build is yours from day one — code, documentation, all of it.

Can one person really handle our entire technical stack?

I've done exactly this for 20+ startups over 27 years. I know what one senior engineer can handle — and I know when to say "we need help here." One person who owns everything actually moves faster than a team of specialists coordinating through Jira tickets.

$15,000/month is a lot for one person.

A CTO plus a senior developer plus a DevOps engineer costs 3–4x that. You're getting all three in one person who's been doing this for 27 years. No coordination overhead, no communication gaps, no finger-pointing between team members.

We need someone who knows [specific technology].

I get productive in hours, not weeks. That's not bravado — it's 27 years of pattern recognition. I've gone from zero hardware experience to shipping BLE firmware in months. From hand-rolling neural networks in C to deploying ML pipelines in the cloud. The technology changes; the engineering doesn't.

How do we know you're as good as you say?

Fair question. Most of my past work is under NDA or at companies that didn't make it — which is most startups. What I can show you: 300+ technical articles on this site that demonstrate how I think about software, and a 20-minute call where I'll walk through any technical problem in your stack live. You'll know in the first 5 minutes.

What kinds of teams are you not a fit for?

VC-funded companies who want to hire a team of 12 engineers and need someone to manage them. I want to BE the engineer, not manage engineers. Also not a fit: companies that want a body in a seat who follows instructions. I make executive-level technical decisions — that's the whole point.

How much does this cost?

$15,000/month. 3-month minimum, 6-month maximum. No hourly billing, no tiered packages, no upsells. I only take on 3 clients at a time — if you want a seat, let's talk and see if the fit is right.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Absolutely, yes. Your legacy code is haunted by the disembodied spirits of junior developers who copy-pasted from Stack Overflow without understanding what they were doing. Let's clear them out. Also, Ghostbusters was my favorite movie as a child.

Let's Talk About Your Team

One meeting. No pitch deck, no proposals. Just a conversation about what you need and whether I'm the right fit.

Roster limited to 3 clients

Book a 20-Minute Call

Pick a time that works. No sales pitch — just a straight conversation about your team and your stack.

Book a Call

No commitment. 20 minutes. Straight answers.

or send a message if you prefer async
The Full-Stack Partnership — $15,000/month
3-month minimum, 6-month maximum. Roster limited to 3 clients.

No long-term contracts. You own all the code.

tl;dr

I embed in your team as the lead engineer. I own the architecture, the strategy, and the code. One person who thinks like a CTO and ships like a senior engineer — because that's the role you actually need.

Let's Talk About Your Team

No commitment. 20 minutes. Straight answers.

Let's Talk · 3-Seat Roster