• Fractional CTO and Architecture

  • FinTech and InsurTech Expertise

  • Pre-Seed to Post-Series A Scaling

  • Zero-Regret Leadership

  • 10x Performance Scaling

  • AI Workforce Modernization

Impact

Solving complex challenges for scaling organizations:
A selection of past efforts and outcomes.

Enterprise Re-Platforming (The "Strangler" Migration)

  • Context: The company’s growth was throttled by a legacy 2013 MVP (Google App Engine/Datastore) that could not handle enterprise transaction volumes.

  • Action: Architected a greenfield modernization using Kotlin, Spring Boot, Docker, and a new Angular frontend, maintaining 100% uptime on the legacy system during the transition.

  • Impact: Delivered a 10x+ improvement in performance and volume throughput. This optimization unlocked new enterprise-tier customers and fundamentally improved engineer velocity, as top-tier talent no longer had to wrestle with brittle legacy code.

Scaling High-Retention Engineering Teams

  • Context: After its MVP achieved success, the company needed to transition from a solo-founder technical model to a sustainable engineering organization without losing culture or velocity.

  • Action: Built a hybrid team of 15+ (internal & offshore), implementing a "Quality-First" culture with competitive equity grants and clear career trajectories.

  • Impact: Achieved 0% regrettable turnover spanning from 2020 to 2024. Despite the volatile tech market, every key contributor was retained, preserving institutional knowledge and ensuring consistent delivery speed.

Strategic Growth (Seed to Series A)

  • Context: Co-founding a platform that needed to demonstrate rapid growth metrics to secure venture backing.

  • Action: Led all technical operations from day one, managing AppSec, Data, and Infrastructure while balancing rapid feature release with long-term stability.

  • Impact: Powered the company’s rise to $6M+ annual revenue and positive cash flow in the first full year. Successfully closed $1.1M Seed and $5.5M Series A rounds by demonstrating a scalable, audit-ready technical foundation.

Services

Services customarily offered.
Not sure if your situation is a fit? Reach out!

  • Fractional CTO

  • 0-to-1 Launch

  • Interim CTO

  • Technical Due Diligence

  • Architecture & Scalability Audit

  • Special Project Consulting

About

A few words from the Founder and Principal Consultant.

Hi. I'm Tim Russell. I'm a strategic CTO and Co-Founder with over 20 years of deep technology experience, primarily in FinTech and InsurTech. I transform organizations from founder-led MVP solutions to enterprise-grade platforms that are scalable, secure, and stable. I bridge the gap between technical execution and business valuation.

Most recently, I co-founded and scaled an InsurTech platform to the top 250 on the Inc. 5000 list, raising $6.6M in venture capital and achieving positive cash flow in year one. I specialize in the "Series A Chasm" — helping startups retire legacy technical debt, implement SOC 2 governance, and leverage modern technologies to maximize engineering velocity and business value.

Throughout my career, I've served as a software engineer, team lead, architect, executive, and board member. I'm not just a code-writer; I'm a culture-builder. In my last leadership engagement, I scaled an international, distributed engineering team and maintained 0% regrettable turnover. I'd love to achieve the same for your team.

Contact

Let's talk. What's easiest for you?

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