Vehicle Management System
Took the company from idea to production, building the application and full infrastructure. Ran for 13 years with little maintenance.
Fractional CTO & Software Architect
Chris Byers
Bringing technical clarity through experience.
I help founders and small businesses make sound technical choices, untangle complex systems, and build software that’s ready for growth.
25+ years of software architecture, design, and development from embedded systems to large-scale commercial platforms.
25+years building
production software
production software
160TB+database scale
expansion and migrations
expansion and migrations
Full Cyclefrom the first decision
to the fully operational product
Experience that goes deep to the fully operational product
Success stories
Built. Shipped.
Still thinking ahead.
A few of the products I’ve architected, built, and helped lead. Different industries. The same hands-on commitment.
Advanced Water Monitoring
Took the company from idea to production, building the full infrastructure, boiler monitoring, alerts, and dashboards.
Automated Lockers
Recovery work across locker applications, Bluetooth controllers, and product design.
Onco Telehealth
Co-founded a mobile platform connecting cancer care, clinical trials, and symptom tracking.
Co-founder & CTO · React Native · AWS
Billable Hub
Time tracking, invoicing, and business workflows. Built and operated end to end.
Room to play.
Mostly for fun, but game design can still be quite complex. I also dabble in video editing and have created advertisements for clients.
Ingenious · Bemuddled · Bomax
Platforms & frameworks
My tech stack
- C/C++
- C#
- Lua
- PHP
- Python
- HTML/JS
- Java
- Kotlin
- Spring Boot
- React
- Node.js
- Next.js
- React Native
- Tailwind
- Twilio
- Ionic
- Capacitor
- Astro
- Claude AI
- Codex AI
- Parse/Parse Server
- Unity 3D
- GraphQL
- Mongo/Atlas
- Elasticsearch
- Postgres
- SQLite
- MySQL
- DynamoDB
- Prisma
- Vercel
- Heroku
- Back4App
- AWS
- S3
- Amplify
- Lambdas
- Cognito
- SNS/SES
- Route53
- Kubernetes
- Docker
- GitLab
- GitHub
- Figma
- Premiere Pro
- After Effects
- Photoshop
- Illustrator
What I do
Critical thinking.
Hands-on help.
For founders, early-stage companies, and growing SaaS teams. I prefer working closely with small teams of 1–5 developers. The architecture decisions you make today will be with you for years. Let’s make them count.
Fractional CTO leadership
A technical partner for the decisions that outlast the sprint. I help set direction, assess engineering candidates, guide delivery, and connect the technology to the business.
A clear direction. A team that can deliver.
System architecture & cloud
Find the bottlenecks, unnecessary complexity, and cloud costs holding you back. Make a practical plan for reliability, security, and the next stage of growth.
Fewer surprises as your product grows.
Database architecture
A focused assessment of data models, schema, indexing, performance, and migration risk, informed by hands-on experience with large databases.
A foundation your business can depend on.
Practical AI & MCP solutions
Give AI a useful, well-defined role in your product. I design integrations using the Model Context Protocol (MCP) with explicit permissions and business rules.
Your company owns the rules. AI owns the conversation.
A practical way into AI
Start where you are.
I’ll help with the next step.
AI adoption strategy
Identify the right starting point, a useful first use case, and a realistic plan.
AI implementation review
Assess your tools, data boundaries, reliability, and operating costs.
Prototype to production
Turn an AI-built prototype into software your team can maintain and trust.
AI systems recovery
Untangle fragile agents, integrations, and generated code. Restore a clear foundation.
What experience brings
The right pieces.
A better whole.
Most software uses familiar pieces: databases, queues, APIs, cloud services, and now AI. Getting them to connect is one thing. Choosing the right ones, and knowing what to leave out, is another.
Over 25+ years, I’ve seen how those choices play out in production. I bring that perspective to your architecture, your team, and the decisions you need to make next.
See why I'm qualifiedDiagnose the real problem.Reduce risk and cloud spend.Lead the work through delivery.
How we will engage
A clear process.
Steady progress.
Understand first. Focus on the important problem. Then build a path forward. A typical engagement may look like this, adjusted to your team and scope.
Weeks 1–2
Understand the whole picture.
Listen to your team. Learn the product. Review the architecture, delivery hurdles, and risks before recommending a change.
You leave withA prioritized assessment
Weeks 3–8
Fix what matters most.
Spend the next 4–6 weeks on the primary issue. Remove the immediate roadblock and help your team put the right solution in place.
You leave withA focused stabilization plan
Weeks 9–16
Build the way forward.
Use the following 8 weeks to strengthen processes, shape a practical roadmap, and verify that the improvements hold.
You leave withA roadmap your team can execute
Work together
A technical partner.
Without the full-time hire.
One straightforward, month-to-month retainer. Experienced leadership with room to get into the details.
Leave your contact details and I’ll get in touch to arrange a meeting at a time that works for both of us.
Fractional CTO retainer
$4,000/ month
15 focused hours. Your priorities.
- Technical direction & architecture
- Hands-on reviews & problem solving
- Engineering guidance & delivery support
- Month to month. No long-term commitment.
Additional travel fees apply if on-site work is required.
Frequent Questions
Let’s clear
a few things up.
A little context before our first conversation.
Can a part-time CTO make a real difference?
Yes, when the scope is focused. Fifteen hours a month can go a long way toward an architecture decision, a difficult delivery problem, or a clearer technical roadmap. We agree on priorities first and use the time where it will have the most impact. Larger implementation efforts need a separate scope or your existing team.
What will you actually do for my company?
I start by understanding the business and the system you have. From there, I can review architecture, investigate performance and cloud costs, identify security and scaling risks, assess and interview engineering candidates, and help your team deliver with a coordinated plan.
Why not just have AI do it?
AI can accelerate research, coding, and analysis. Someone still needs to weigh the tradeoffs, understand your business constraints, validate the output, and take responsibility for the direction. I help you use AI as part of your strategy, with human judgment around it. That experienced judgment matters when:
- Your application works, but its architecture cannot support growth.
- You have security vulnerabilities you do not fully understand.
- Your database design is becoming a bottleneck.
- You are spending too much on cloud infrastructure.
- Your AI-generated code is becoming difficult to maintain.
- You need to hire developers but are not sure how to evaluate them.
- You need someone accountable for technical decisions, beyond simply generating code.
What is my real cost?
The retainer is $4,000 per month for 15 hours, on a month-to-month basis. Travel is additional if on-site work is required. If your needs extend beyond the included time, we’ll agree on scope and pricing before any additional work starts.
Who is this a good fit for?
Founders, early-stage companies, and small businesses with a growing software product. I work especially well with teams of 1–5 developers that need experienced technical direction. I can also help when a major architecture, database, or AI decision needs validation.
Do you advise, or do you build too?
Both. I’m a seasoned software engineer and SaaS founder, so my advice is grounded in building and operating production systems. Depending on the scope, I can diagnose problems, review code, design the solution, and work alongside your engineers to implement it. In some cases, I can jump into the fire and put it out myself, but if you already have developers, you probably do not want to pay me to do their job.