How I work
I step into engineering organisations that have become slow, unclear or hard to lead. The work is practical: find the constraint, remove the drag, get delivery moving.
Interim CTO / VP Engineering
For when leadership needs to be taken on, not advised from the sidelines. I work inside the organisation: with the team, the product leaders and the codebase.
Usually 3–12 months. I need authority to set engineering priorities, change how delivery is run and make technical calls, with a sponsor who will back those decisions.
Focused consulting
For a specific knot: a delivery problem, a technical estate that is holding the business back, or an engineering organisation that has lost its shape.
Usually 2–6 months, with a defined problem and scope. Your leaders stay accountable; I diagnose the problem, set the priorities and work alongside them to put the changes into practice.
Find. Cut. Ship.
Find the constraint
I look at the work, the systems and the decisions around them. Then I find the bottleneck that is making everything else slower.
Cut the drag
Approval layers, meetings, brittle ownership, process debt. If it is not helping the team deliver, it is up for removal.
Ship
Turn the changes into working habits and visible delivery. I will get into the detail, including the technical detail, when that is where the blockage sits.
The method is simple on purpose. I do not arrive with a framework to impose or a slide deck to admire after I have left.
What the work needs
I need access to the people doing the work, delivery data, code and systems, planning and decision forums. I will speak to engineers, product and leadership, and look at what is actually happening rather than what the status report says.
For interim work, authority means I can change priorities, ownership and technical direction. For consulting, it means your sponsor can make those calls quickly. Progress does not come from another alignment loop.
Start, then hand over
We start with a short conversation, then agree the problem, scope, authority and way of working. Early on, I make the diagnosis and tackle the first constraints. The plan changes when the evidence does.
Before I leave, your people own the priorities, decisions and delivery routines. The point is a team that can keep moving without an interim leader propping it up.
Good fit, bad fit
A good fit
You lead a 20–250 person engineering organisation, or a scale-up at the point where delivery and technical decisions have become tangled. You want an honest view and are prepared to act on it.
Not a good fit
You need a slide deck to validate a decision already made, a new framework for its own sake, or someone to absorb responsibility without authority.