Some teams don’t need a project delivered. They need someone senior in the room every week: to make the technical calls, build the parts that are hard, and keep the plan honest.

I take a small number of fractional clients on a monthly retainer, a set number of hours each week, actually blocked out rather than squeezed between other work. There’s no fixed scope to renegotiate when you learn something in week three; you point the hours at whatever matters most.

Four shapes cover almost everyone who asks.

Ongoing product work

For founders who need steady progress. Product decisions, design, and the code that ships them, week after week, with room to change direction between weeks.

I was Sourcetable's first engineer, and I've taken my own apps from nothing to the App Store: Little Memory and Ready Time.

The mobile side of your product

For companies whose iOS app has no senior owner. I take the mobile work: architecture, releases, App Store review, crash triage, and the app code itself, alongside your web team.

I led mobile at Bebo and at Hipmunk, and spent four years as the iOS side of Sonato.

Embedded senior engineer

For teams shipping fine that need more capacity on the riskiest work. Your repo, your tools, your standups, reviewing and being reviewed like anyone else.

I've built inside large established codebases, including Twitch's.

Hiring your engineers

For founders making technical hires with nobody senior to judge the technical side. I design the interview, run the screens or sit in on yours, and give you a read you can act on.

I was the mobile team's development manager at Hipmunk, where hiring and interviewing engineers was part of the job.

How the retainer works

A set number of hours each week
No discovery phase, we start working
In your repo and your tools
Your standups and your review process
Everything under What I handle
Accounts stay in your name

What you're buying is a set number of hours from a senior engineer who owns what he ships.

Selected work

Sonato

The app private club members use to book, order, and get in the door. Rebuilt from scratch to a 5-star rating.

iOS app

Hipmunk

The travel app with the visual flight search. Led the iOS team; featured by Apple in 2019.

iOS app

Bebo

Social network. As Head of Mobile, grew mobile web from 0 to 4M daily users and built the SMS platform.

Mobile web and SMS

Twitch

Built the Go indexing service that feeds live streams into the search millions use.

Search indexer

Sourcetable

Spreadsheet startup. As the first engineer, built the product and the engineering practice around it.

Web app

How it goes

First call

What you're building, where it hurts, and how many hours a week would actually help. We agree on the hours and a start date from there.
First weeks

The first week is mostly reading and listening. By the second I'm shipping.
The long run

Around six months in, you stop explaining context and decisions get faster. Nothing locks you in; the length takes care of itself if the work is good.

Is this you?

Good fit

You have real technical decisions in front of you and nobody senior to make them, or a team that ships fine and one area of risk nobody has time for. Eight to sixteen hours a week would visibly change your quarter.

Less good fit

You need forty hours a week. That's a hire, and it will serve you better than a fraction of me. I can help you make that hire and hand over cleanly when they start.

Also: iOS apps · Web apps · An existing product · All services

Let's build it

I'm taking on new projects. Tell me what you're working on and I'll tell you how I'd build it.

Get in touch

I read every message myself.