Frisco, Texas · Collin

Your lead engineer, embedded in your Frisco 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. I bring 27 years of startup engineering to Frisco founders across Collin and all of Texas. Remote-first, on-site when it actually changes the outcome.

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.

What an Embedded Lead Engineer Actually Does

Half the "fractional CTOs" out there are advisors in a fancy hat — Notion docs, Slack opinions, zero pull requests. That isn't the job.

Writes real code

Not a strategy doc, not a Notion page — production code, in your repo, tested and deployed. The lead engineer you hire should be able to unblock the team by shipping, not just advising on Slack.

Owns architecture decisions

Database choice, auth pattern, deployment pipeline, monitoring, cost structure. Founders without a technical partner end up with whatever their first contractor felt like using — and pay for it later.

Manages the humans

Reviews contractor output, interviews engineering hires, calls the BS when a vendor is overcharging, and makes sure everyone on your team is set up to succeed.

Carries investor credibility

When a VC asks "who's your technical lead?" on a fundraising call, you need a name, a LinkedIn, and a track record — not a contractor nobody knows. An embedded lead engineer closes that gap without the full-time equity grant.

The "embedded" part means I work across 3 clients at a time — so Frisco founders get senior engineering judgment at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire. The "still writes the code" part is what separates this from advisory roles.

Seth Black — embedded lead engineer for startups

About Seth

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

I started writing code at 15. Since then I've been engineer #1, CTO, lead architect, and 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.

I've hand-rolled neural networks in C when there were no good Python libraries, shoved terabytes of data through Postgres every hour without melting the cluster, designed custom BLE protocols for wearable hardware, built CAD-integrated configurators that drove real CNC machines, shipped computer vision systems that ran on off-the-shelf cameras, and stood up billing/auth/ops infrastructure more times than I can count.

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.

Health & Biotech

ML / AI Systems

Hardware / Embedded

Energy & Climate

Fintech / Payments

Manufacturing / CAD

Computer Vision

Consumer / SaaS

How The Full-Stack Partnership Works

No discovery calls that turn into sales pitches. No 30-slide decks. Here's what happens when a Frisco founder reaches out:

Embed

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

Assess

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

Own

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

Build

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

Evolve

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

The Full-Stack Partnership

One engineer. Your entire technical stack. Architecture, strategy, and daily code — available to Frisco founders and teams.

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.
Architecture reviews, hiring guidance, and the technical credibility investors demand.
100% code ownership from day one.

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

Lessons from 20+ Startups

Twenty startups. Every flavor of failure and quiet success. Here are a few lessons I bring to every Frisco engagement:

The "Genius Dev" leaves eventually

Worked at a crowdfunding startup where the one rock-star engineer used the attention to land a FAANG job — and left a gaping hole nobody could fill. The lesson: document relentlessly, and never let one person become a single point of failure.

Watch churn more than bookings

Had a sales rep "crush" their goals by selling features the company didn't actually have. Customers churned right after commission got paid. The lesson: retention and engagement metrics tell the truth; booking numbers often don't.

"Quick fixes" on Friday are rarely quick

Shipped a "small" change on a Friday afternoon that took down an e-commerce site for launch weekend, because I tested in Firefox and forgot about IE. The lesson: test like a user, not like a developer.

Interview for judgment, not trivia

Hired a developer who aced every technical quiz, then turned out not to know how to code — they'd been hoping to figure it out before anyone noticed. The lesson: conversational interviews about real past decisions beat whiteboard gotchas every time.

These aren't hypotheticals. Each one cost a real company real money — so your Frisco startup doesn't have to re-learn them.

Frisco, Texas · Collin · Large City

Working with Frisco Founders

Frisco is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country — The Star (Cowboys HQ), PGA of America HQ, and a dense corporate presence fuel a young startup scene heavy on fintech, sports tech, and corporate-adjacent SaaS. Capital is unusually available, founder networks lean corporate, and the talent market is improving fast.

What I see most often in Frisco: founders who are unusually well-resourced — corporate-adjacent, fast-growing market, lots of capital chasing them. The risk profile is the opposite of cash-strapped Austin: over-engineering for a 'unicorn' trajectory before the unit economics are validated. The work is usually about restraint and sequencing — what to build now vs. what to defer until the next round.

<built-in method copy of dict object at 0x7f64996632c0>

The companies I take on in Frisco tend to cluster around fintech, sports tech, North Texas growth — though I've delivered engagements across nearly every flavor of Texas startup. What they have in common: a founder who needs someone they can trust to make technical calls without having to double-check every decision.

Distance from Houston

250 miles · regional

Market tier

Large City · pop. 219,304

Region

Collin, Texas

Also Serving Collin

Remote-first engagements work across all of Texas. Some of the other Collin cities I work with:

Plano McKinney Allen Wylie Prosper All Texas Cities →

The Frisco Industry Landscape

Where the actual work in Frisco happens — and where founders most often need a senior technical partner who already speaks the domain.

Fintech

Capital One Plano-adjacent fintech operations, plus the wave of fintech founders coming out of Frisco's corporate finance ecosystem.

Capital One Plano USAA Frisco T-Mobile Frisco

Sports & Entertainment Tech

The Star (Cowboys), PGA of America HQ, FC Dallas, and an unusually concentrated sports-business ecosystem. Ticketing, fan engagement, premium hospitality, sports analytics — all real markets with founders who have real customer access.

Dallas Cowboys (The Star) PGA of America HQ FC Dallas

Corporate-Adjacent SaaS

Founders selling tools designed for the Fortune 500 corporate-park culture they came out of — meeting tools, expense management, internal communications, ops automation.

Frisco Innovation Hub

Anchor Organizations

The Star (Cowboys)
PGA of America HQ
FC Dallas
Frisco Innovation Hub
Capital One Plano
T-Mobile Frisco

Universities & Research

UNT Frisco
Collin College Frisco

Neighborhoods I Serve

The Star area Frisco Square Stonebriar Legacy West (Plano-adjacent)

From the field

What I see most often in Frisco

Frisco founders are usually unusually well-resourced — corporate-adjacent, in a fast-growing market, with lots of capital chasing them. The risk pattern is the opposite of cash-strapped Austin: they're tempted to over-engineer for a 'unicorn' trajectory before they've really validated the unit economics. The work is often about restraint — what to build now vs. what to defer until the next round, and which architectural calls are reversible vs. which lock you into something you'll regret.

Questions I Actually Get Asked

Do you work with sports tech and entertainment startups?

Yes — there's a meaningful concentration of those in Frisco, and the engineering rhythms are different from a steady-state SaaS. Event-driven traffic patterns, premium hospitality logic, ticketing, content delivery — software has to handle 100x load for four hours and then sit idle. That changes architectural priorities significantly, but it's not unfamiliar territory.

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.

Do you work with Frisco-based teams in person?

I'm primarily remote-first, which means I can usually start faster. For Frisco and other Texas clients, on-site visits are possible when they genuinely move the needle — not for meetings that could've been a Slack message.

What happens if we're not a good fit?

The 3-month minimum exists so we both take the engagement seriously and have real time to ship. After that, we can wrap at the end of any month up to the 6-month maximum. You keep all the code and documentation.

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 we'll 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.

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

Name

The Full-Stack Partnership — $15,000/month

3-month minimum, 6-month maximum. Roster limited to 3 clients.

Tell me about your team and what you're building

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