status: accepting new engagements
Currently taking on new clients
Engineering leadership
that still ships code.
Technical leadership
without the full-time hire.
I'm Matt Hemmings, a fractional CTO. I own the architecture, the delivery pipeline and the infrastructure, then work in the codebase with your team to pay down whatever is slowing you down. Based in South Wales, working with engineering teams across the UK.
I'm Matt Hemmings, a fractional CTO who joins your team to sort out the technology, fix what's broken, and get the important things done. Based in South Wales, working with businesses across the UK.
// What I do
Fractional CTO services
Senior technical leadership, part-time: architecture, delivery process, infrastructure, and the team that runs them. Opinionated where it matters, pragmatic everywhere else. No 80-page strategy decks, just decisions that make it into production.
I give growing businesses senior technical leadership on a part-time basis. You get the experience without the £200k salary. No fluff, no 80-page strategy decks. Just someone who gets stuck in and makes decisions.
01
Architecture & stack decisionsTechnology strategy
Choosing proven technology that fits your constraints: service boundaries, data models, build vs buy, and written decision records so the reasoning outlives the meeting. Not whatever's trending on Hacker News this week.
Helping you choose the right technology and set it up sensibly, based on what actually works for a business like yours, not whatever's trending online this week.
02
Engineering team & processBuilding your tech team
Hiring loops, onboarding, code review norms, branching and release workflow, and on-call rotations that don't burn people out. A team that ships on its own, without every decision routing through one person.
Hiring, onboarding, and putting the right habits in place so your team can get on with the work without you having to check up on them.
03
Infrastructure & reliabilityReliable infrastructure
Infrastructure as code, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring and alerting, caching and autoscaling that hold up under load. I've run platforms serving 20M+ visits a month, where zero-downtime deploys actually matter.
The systems behind the scenes that keep your product running and stop it falling over. I've run platforms handling more than 20 million visits a month.
04
Technical debt & legacy systemsFixing what's holding you back
Profiling the codebase and the delivery process to find what's really hurting throughput, then leading the refactors and migrations to fix it. I'm currently running exactly this kind of remediation on a large platform.
I review what you already have, work out what's actually slowing the business down, and lead the work to put it right. I'm currently running exactly this kind of clean-up on a large platform.
05
Scaling for growthGetting ready to scale
Demand is up and the database, the monolith and the deploy process are all starting to creak. I find the bottlenecks, harden the hot paths, and scale ahead of the load rather than during an outage.
You've found something that works and customers want more of it, but the cracks are starting to show. I help you go from getting by to being ready for serious growth.
06
Technical due diligenceDue diligence
Independent assessments for investors, acquirers and boards: code quality, architecture, security posture, scalability, key-person risk, and whether the team can actually deliver the roadmap.
Independent technology assessments for investors, buyers, and boards. Honest answers about what's really going on behind the scenes: strengths, risks, and whether the team can deliver.
// Case studies
Production problems, anonymised Real problems, anonymised
Client names and identifying details are stripped out, but the failure modes, the constraints and the fixes are real.
Names and identifying details are left out, but these are the kind of situations businesses actually bring me.
Giving a fast-growing product's backend real headroomGetting a growing product ready for serious growth
A consumer product's order processing lagged under peak load and a key third-party integration failed silently, on infrastructure built from quick fixes.A company had found genuine demand for its product, but the infrastructure behind it was a patchwork of quick fixes that was just about coping.
Read the case study → Technical debt & legacy systemsFixing what's holding you backRunning a tech debt remediation programme across a multi-service platform, without a feature freezeLeading a technical debt clean-up without stopping the business
Years of accumulated shortcuts across a multi-service platform meant slow delivery, regressions across service boundaries, and releases nobody fully trusted.Years of shortcuts across a large, multi-service platform had made every new feature slower to build and every release riskier than it should be.
Read the case study → Engineering team & processBuilding your tech teamTaking a founder-only codebase to a real engineering teamBuilding the first real engineering team around a founder
A B2B product had a bus factor of one. The founder was the only engineer who understood the system, and every change, down to small bug fixes, went through him.A founder had built the whole product himself and every technical decision, big or small, still had to go through him personally.
Read the case study →// Track record
Systems I've built and run Things I've built and delivered
Not a CV. Just evidence that I've run this stuff in production and it stayed up.
Not a CV. Just proof that I've done this before and the things didn't fall over.
High-traffic content platformsLarge-scale content platforms
Architected and operated platforms serving 20M+ monthly visits. Caching strategy, horizontal scaling, and deploy pipelines built for traffic where every regression shows up on the graphs straight away.
Built and run platforms handling 20M+ monthly visits. The kind of scale where small mistakes get expensive fast, and things need to work first time.
Multi-tenant freight and shipping platformsFreight and shipping platforms
Led engineering on freight and shipping platforms used by multiple franchises and their customers. Multi-tenant architecture, per-franchise pricing and business rules, and integrations where a silent failure means a lost shipment.
Led the technology behind freight and shipping platforms used by franchises and their customers across the country. Complex operations, lots of moving parts, and no room for "it's probably fine."
Large-scale platform remediationCleaning up a major platform
Currently leading a major tech debt remediation programme across a large platform: finding the real bottlenecks, prioritising by impact, and driving the refactors and migrations through to production. Not an audit that gathers dust.
Currently leading a major clean-up programme across a large platform: working out what's actually slowing the business down, being ruthless about priorities, and getting it fixed. Not just writing a report and walking away.
Side ventures
I build things because I can't help it. Some of them even make money.
A managed website platform for tattoo artists: build, hosting and updates handled end to end, so the artists never have to touch DNS. Because tattoo artists are brilliant at art and usually terrible at web hosting.
Managed websites for tattoo artists, built and hosted so they don't have to think about it. Because tattoo artists are brilliant at art and usually terrible at web hosting.
A mobile app for tracking home food inventory, currently in active development. Built because nobody in my house tells me when the milk's run out, and I got tired of guessing.
A home food inventory app for your phone. Built because nobody in my house tells me when the milk's run out, and I got tired of guessing.
Custom vehicle wraps and automotive art. No deploys, no pager, and no rollback either, so measure twice.
Custom vehicle wraps and automotive art. A nice break from screens, and a lot more forgiving than a codebase.
// How I work
The fractional model
Fractional means part-time, embedded, and accountable. I'm in your standups, your pull request reviews and your incident channel, not writing recommendations from the outside.
Fractional means part-time, embedded, and accountable. I'm not a consultant who writes a report and disappears. I get properly involved: in your meetings, in the detail, and in the work itself.
01
1–3 days per week
A regular cadence with the team: standups, planning, architecture reviews and hands-on time in the codebase. Enough continuity to own the technical decisions, without a full-time senior salary.
Embedded with your team on a regular schedule. Enough to make a real difference, without you paying for a full-time salary you don't need yet.
02
I write code, not just ticketsHands-on, not just advice
I pair with engineers, review PRs, set up the pipelines, and write the awkward migration myself when that's the fastest route. An architecture diagram is worthless if nobody implements it.
I get stuck into the actual work alongside your team, not just handing down advice from the sidelines. A good strategy is worthless without someone to make it happen, and I do both.
03
3–12 month engagements
Long enough to see a platform change through: assess, stabilise, improve, then hand over with documentation and a team that owns it. Most clients stay towards the longer end.
Long enough to make a real impact. Short enough that you're not locked in. Most clients stay towards the longer end because the value keeps building.
04
Lighter-touch advisoryAdvisory available too
Architecture and code reviews, hiring loop design and interview support, technical due diligence, or a second opinion before you commit to a big migration or rewrite.
Not every business needs someone in the weeds full-time. I also do lighter advisory work: reviewing your setup, supporting hiring, technical due diligence, or just being someone to sanity-check decisions with.
// Articles
Engineering leadership, explained Straight answers, no jargon
Written for business owners first, but the engineering reasoning is all in there. Handy for sharing with the people who sign off the budget.
Written for business owners, not engineers. The questions I get asked most often, answered properly.
What are feature flags, and why should a business owner care?
Feature flags let your team switch features on and off without releasing new software. What they are in plain English, what they mean for risk and launches, and the catch.
Read →What happens if your only developer leaves?
If one person understands how your software works, that's a serious business risk. How to spot key-person risk in your tech team, and how to reduce it without drama.
Read →What a fractional CTO actually does in the first 90 days
Curious what actually happens when you bring in a fractional CTO? A realistic, roughly week-by-week look at what the first 90 days of the engagement involve.
Read →How to hire your first engineers without a technical background
Hiring your first developers without a technical background of your own is daunting. Practical, non-technical advice for judging who's actually good.
Read →// About
A bit about me
I'm Matt. I live in the South Wales valleys with my three kids, who we home-school. That means my office is rarely quiet, but it's also taught me to stay patient and keep several things going at once.
I've spent my career building and running production systems for growing businesses. I optimise for reliability and low operational overhead. The best architecture decisions are usually the boring ones: proven tools, simple deploys, and nothing that pages you at 3am.
I've spent my career building and running the technology behind growing businesses. I like things that just work, reliably, without drama. The best decisions are usually the boring ones: the kind nobody notices, because nothing goes wrong.
Outside work I'm into cars, barbecue and smoking meat (I take my brisket seriously), gardening, and the odd gaming session once the kids are in bed. I also build side projects, because I'm not very good at sitting still. Beeinked, Beestocked and Croen all started as a "what if I just..." and turned into real things.
I'm not a CTO who stopped writing code years ago. I still work in the codebase, review PRs and debug production issues, and I know how to build and lead a team around it. If that's what your engineering team needs, let's talk.
I'm not a corporate CTO who learned management from a textbook. I still get properly hands-on with the work, and I know how to build and lead a team around it. If that sounds like what your business needs, let's talk.
// Get in touch
Let's have a conversation
No sales funnel, no booking widget to fight with. Just drop me a message and I'll get back to you, usually within a few hours. Tell me about your stack, your team, and what's currently on fire.
No sales funnel, no booking widget to fight with. Just drop me a message and I'll get back to you, usually within a few hours. Tell me what you're working on and where you're stuck.