Portfolio · Open to engagements

A senior technical partner for real-moneystartups — without the full-time executive cost.

Fractional CTO and infrastructure architect for fintech and SaaS companies in the KYC, banking-API, SOC 2, and Series A+ fundraising trenches. The same stack that backed $5M+ in investor transactions at my prior CTO role, brought in as a partner.

Book an architecture reviewSee engagements
Practice
Fintech · SaaS · Series A+
Engagement
Fractional retainer · Architecture review
Base
Remote · North America hours
Availability
Limited teams per quarter
stack schematic production
AUDIT PERIMETERTENANT BOUNDARYIdentity & accessKYC / KYB pipelinesanctions · UBO · doc-verifyMulti-tenant datarow-level isolation · per-tenant keysAudit evidenceevent-sourced · append-only · SOC 2-readyBanking API integrationACH · wire · ledger reconciliationRBACeventsscopesattestledger
layered for diligencebuild → defend → hand off
On this page
01Practice02Engagements03Approach04Background
Practice

The technical stack that decides whether a real-money event succeeds.

Every founder I’ve worked with eventually hits a date on the calendar that the current stack has not earned the right to clear: a banking-partner integration, a SOC 2 audit, an investor diligence call. The work below is the set of layers that turn that date from a risk into a checkbox.

Not advisory decks. Not roadmap sketches. Code, runbooks, and a team that can run them cold.

  • KYC / KYB pipelines

    /01
    • ·Sanctions / PEP / UBO triangulation
    • ·Document verification + manual review loop
    • ·Onboarding flows that keep compliance in the call path

  • Multi-tenant architecture

    /02
    • ·Tenant isolation without paying per-tenant cost
    • ·Shared services with hard tenancy boundaries
    • ·Migration paths that do not require a freeze

  • AWS / Terraform infrastructure

    /03
    • ·Production-grade Terraform with reproducible environments
    • ·IAM boundary design for fintech-grade blast radius
    • ·Cost & observability wired in from day one

  • SOC 2 readiness

    /04
    • ·Evidence collection instrumented at write time
    • ·Controls mapped to policies that hold up to auditors
    • ·Readiness timeline, not readiness theater

  • Series A+ technical due diligence

    /05

  • Banking-API integrations

    /06
    • ·ACH / wire flows with reconciliation
    • ·Ledger design that survives year-end close
    • ·Partner SLAs translated into runbooks
Engagements

Two ways to bring this in.

One is a focused, short-window review with a memo at the end. The other is an ongoing partnership with a small, deliberate number of teams in flight at once. Both are paid engagements — no equity ask, no advisory-day handouts.

Now
One-off · Bookable
Switch tabs to compare the two shapes.

Architecture review

One-off · Bookable

A 2–3 week focused engagement. The current stack is read end-to-end, the load-bearing risks for the next event (launch, audit, financing) are mapped, and a written memo + a working session is handed back. No retainer, no obligation.

Best for

Founders entering a hard diligence window, teams that have inherited a stack they did not build, or a one-shot technical question for an investor.

Deliverables
  • Architecture walkthrough + load-bearing risk map
  • Written memo of findings, with priorities and costs
  • Working session with founders, eng lead, and (optionally) counsel
  • A diligence-ready artifact on the top one or two items
Book a reviewTwo business days reply, with a yes / no / not-the-right-fit answer.
Approach

A working partner, not a deliverable.

I sit inside the team’s planning rhythm — not at the end with a PDF. The output is a stack that holds up under auditors, banking partners, and Series A diligence. The artifact of the engagement is the code, the runbook, and a team that can run it without me.

  1. 01

    Scope & risk map

    0–2 weeks

    Confirm what the diligence or launch actually requires (KYC pipeline, banking partner integration, audit controls). Identify the load-bearing risk and where the existing stack is unproven.

  2. 02

    Prove the critical path

    1–3 weeks

    Build or harden the two or three pieces an applicant, banker, or auditor will inspect first — KYC/KYB flow, evidence pipeline, IAM boundary. Each proof artifact ships behind a runbook, not a memo.

  3. 03

    Hand off without a cliff

    2–6 weeks

    Write the runbook, train the in-house owner, and stay on call for incident response through the next diligence / launch event. The retainer ends when the team can run it cold.

Background

12+ years on systems
that hold up under pressure.

The arc below is intentional: two CTO seats at category-defining companies, one senior seat inside a YC-backed team, and two platform-grade roles before that. The work has consistently been the part of the stack an investor, auditor, or banking partner inspects first.

CTO seats
2
Investor $ backed
$5M+
  1. R1

    Ashta.ai

    CTO · AI-native real estate platform

    Founder seat
    • ·Production AI inference for property valuations
    • ·SOC 2 evidence pipeline across the engineering org
    • ·Re-architected the property-data ingestion path
  2. R2

    BuyProperly

    CTO · Fractional real estate investing platform

    Founder seat
    • ·Multi-tenant architecture that backed 5M+ in investor transactions
    • ·KYC / KYB onboarding flow shipped end-to-end
    • ·AWS / Terraform infrastructure built from a blank account
  3. R3

    Arda (YC W22)

    Senior Engineering · Early-stage team

    Scale seat
    • ·Built the data model underneath the first product iteration
    • ·Owned the production deploy & incident response rotation
  4. R4

    Athenahealth

    Engineering · Healthcare platform

    Platform seat
    • ·Production code on a HIPAA-bound system at scale
    • ·Patterns that transferred directly to fintech tenancy
  5. R5

    Verizon

    Engineering · Telecom, earliest role

    Platform seat
    • ·Network-bound systems engineering
    • ·Where the instinct for production-grade defaults got installed
Engagements open

If a real-money event is on the calendar — launch, audit, investor diligence — the technical stack should already be ready for it.

I take a deliberately small number of teams per quarter so that the work is partner-level, not advisory-level. Send a short note describing the company, stage, the event on the calendar, and where you want a senior technical voice in the room.