01 Technical consulting
The expensive decisions get made before anyone writes code.
Build or buy. Rewrite or refactor. Trust this vendor or replace them. Technical consulting is the work of getting those calls right when the cost of getting them wrong is measured in quarters. We sit on your side of the table as senior engineers, not as a deck and an invoice. Start with a Performance & Architecture Audit.
02 The position
Most technical advice is either a sales pitch or a guess.
The vendor wants you to buy. The framework evangelist wants you on their framework. The contractor wants the bigger build. Even well-meaning advice usually comes from someone who has never had to live with the consequences of being wrong. So founders make six-figure decisions on confident opinions that nobody is accountable for.
We give technical advice the way we'd want it if it were our money: grounded in your actual constraints, honest about trade-offs, and willing to recommend the boring or the cheaper option when it's right. We have built the systems we're advising you on, and we'll be remembered for the call we made, so we make it carefully.
This is the same judgment that runs through everything we do, from designing the platform to tuning it under load. The advice is independent; the engineering is real.
03 Philosophy
The most valuable thing we sell is the willingness to tell you not to build it.
A consultancy paid by the hour has a quiet incentive to find more hours. We have built the opposite habit: the engagements we are proudest of often end with a recommendation that saves a client more than our fee, including the recommendation to do nothing, to buy off the shelf, or to keep the system they already have. We would rather be the firm that told you the truth than the one that took the project.
Boutique means you get a principal, not a pyramid. The person assessing your codebase is a senior engineer who has shipped and operated systems like yours, not an analyst translating a methodology. You are buying judgment, and judgment does not delegate well.
Anyone can recommend building something. It takes a clear head to recommend not to.
04 Capabilities
Where founders and teams bring us in.
- 01
Fractional CTO
Senior technical leadership without a full-time hire: setting technical direction, making the architecture calls, sitting in on hiring, and translating between the business and the engineering reality. For founders who need a head of engineering before they need to pay for one.
- 02
Architecture review
An independent read on the system you have versus the company you're becoming. We name the decisions quietly capping your speed or scale and give you a prioritized path. Pairs naturally with platform architecture.
- 03
Build-vs-buy decisions
The honest analysis behind a six-figure fork in the road: what building actually costs over three years, what buying actually constrains, and which one fits the company you intend to be. We do the math you don't have time to do.
- 04
Vendor & agency audits
An expert second opinion on the firm building your software: is the work sound, the architecture defensible, the pace reasonable, the price fair? We assess what you're getting so you can decide whether to keep paying for it.
- 05
Codebase audits
A structured assessment of code quality, architecture, test coverage, and operational risk, in language a founder can act on. The fast entry point is our productized Performance & Architecture Audit.
- 06
Technical due diligence
For investors and acquirers: what you're actually buying, where the risk lives, and what the next two years of engineering will really cost. We work for your clarity, not the deal's momentum.
05 Method
How we think about the work.
- 01
Understand the business before the code.
A technical recommendation that ignores the company's stage, capital, and ambitions is just trivia. We start by understanding where you're trying to go, because the right architecture for a ten-person startup and a hundred-person company are different systems with the same name.
- 02
Independence is the product.
We don't take referral fees, we don't have a stack to sell, and we'll happily tell you the vendor you're worried about is doing fine work. The whole value of advice is that the person giving it has no stake in your answer except being right.
- 03
End with a decision, not a deck.
You don't need forty slides; you need to know what to do on Monday. We deliver a clear recommendation, the reasoning behind it, and the trade-offs we weighed, so the call is yours to own with full information.
07 Related thinking
Where this work goes deeper.
· Questions we get
Common questions, honest answers.
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How is a fractional CTO engagement structured?
Flexibly, around what you actually need. Some clients want a few days a month of senior direction and architecture oversight; others want hands-on involvement through a critical decision or build. We scope to the problem, not to a fixed retainer template, and we're honest when you've outgrown the need for us.
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Can you review work another agency is doing?
Yes, and we do it without theatrics. We assess the architecture, code, and pace objectively and tell you what we find, good or bad. The goal is to give you an informed read on whether the relationship is serving you, not to win the project by trashing the incumbent.
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What does technical consulting cost?
It spans a wide range, because the engagements do. Engagements start at $2,500, and the productized Performance & Architecture Audit is a fixed-scope way to start; ongoing fractional leadership or a deep platform engagement is scoped on the call. We take a limited number of clients, so the person advising you is always a principal.
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Is this just for startups?
No. We advise funded startups choosing their first real architecture, established companies whose platform has stopped keeping up, and investors doing diligence on a target. The common thread is a high-stakes technical decision and the desire to get it right with someone who has no agenda but accuracy.
· Working together
Bring us the decision you can't afford to get wrong.
Build or buy, rewrite or refactor, trust the vendor or replace them. Tell us what's keeping you up, and we'll give you a straight answer from someone who has no stake in it but accuracy.
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