Architecture is risk management
Every technical decision is a bet on the future. I make those bets explicit, documented, and reversible. The goal is not perfect architecture. The goal is knowing exactly what you are trading off and why.
Brian Hume
Fractional CTO and AI Systems Architect for Series A-C companies. Senior judgment without the six-month search, the equity hit, or the $500K bet on someone unproven. Stop guessing your roadmap and start hitting your ship dates.
In the first 60 days: audit your architecture, identify the decisions creating the most risk, and ship the thing that has been stuck.
The Reality
Proof-of-concepts that never reach production because no one planned for scale.
Vector databases implemented before understanding the problem they are meant to solve.
Expensive senior talent writing throwaway code because the architecture is undefined.
No documentation. No exit strategy. No architectural decision records.
Technical debt compounding faster than feature velocity.
Founders who cannot explain their own technical roadmap to investors.
Principles
Every technical decision is a bet on the future. I make those bets explicit, documented, and reversible. The goal is not perfect architecture. The goal is knowing exactly what you are trading off and why.
The goal is never "use AI." The goal is solve problems profitably. If a regex solves it better than a transformer, you use the regex. I have no allegiance to technology. Only outcomes.
Every line of code is a future maintenance burden. Every microservice is another failure mode. Every dependency is a supply chain risk. I optimize for deletion. Ship less, ship better.
If it is not written down, it does not exist. Architecture decisions fade from memory. Context evaporates when people leave. I document for the future developer who will curse your name. That developer is you, six months from now.
Fit
The Model
Most Series A-C companies do not need a full-time CTO. They need senior strategic leadership without the $500K+ commitment. Here is how fractional compares.
Engagement
A clear picture
Two focused sessions to identify what is broken, what is risky, and what needs to change.
Includes:
Ongoing counsel
Monthly strategic hours for architecture reviews, hiring decisions, vendor evaluation, and technical roadmap planning.
Includes:
Embedded leadership
Part-time integration into your team. I run technical strategy, lead engineering, and own outcomes.
Includes:
Manifesto
I have spent two decades building systems that survive contact with users. I have seen the same mistakes repeated in different languages, different frameworks, different companies. The technology changes. The mistakes do not.
Most technical problems are not technical. They are organizational, cultural, or incentive problems disguised as technical ones. You cannot engineer your way out of a bad product strategy. You cannot microservice your way out of unclear requirements. You cannot AI your way out of fundamental process dysfunction.
I am not impressed by your tech stack. I am impressed by your ability to ship. I care about uptime, not uptimes. I care about whether your architecture fits your constraints, not whether it fits a blog post from 2018.
Code is a liability until it is shipping value. Every line you write is a future maintenance burden. Every abstraction is a bet that the future will look like you think it will. Most of those bets lose. The job is not to write clever code. The job is to write boring, deletable, understandable code that solves a real problem.
I have no patience for resume-driven development, architecture astronauts, or technology for technology's sake. If you want someone to validate your Kubernetes cluster for a three-person startup, hire someone else. If you want someone to tell you the truth about what you need, when you need it, and why it matters—you are in the right place.
I optimize for outcomes, not outputs. For clarity, not complexity. For momentum, not perfection. If that sounds like what you need, let us talk.
I take on 2-3 clients at a time. A 30-minute call will establish whether this makes sense for both of us.
No pitch. No pressure. Just a conversation.