Technical consulting and architecture
Architecture review, technology selection, due diligence and fractional CTO cover — advice with a name on it.
Some decisions are expensive to reverse. The database you pick, the boundary you draw between services, whether to buy or build, whether the team you are about to acquire has a codebase or a liability. Those decisions benefit from someone with no stake in the answer.
We do short, sharp engagements that end in a written document: the options, the trade-offs, the recommendation and the reasoning. Something you can put in front of a board or an engineering team and have the argument on the merits.
Where the need is ongoing rather than a single decision, we provide fractional CTO cover — architecture governance, hiring support, vendor management and roadmap sequencing — at a fraction of a full-time hire, for as long as you genuinely need it.
The parts that matter.
- 01
Architecture review
An independent assessment of your current system against where the business is going in eighteen months — bottlenecks, single points of failure, coupling and the specific changes that unblock scale.
- 02
Technology selection
Structured evaluation of build versus buy, framework and platform choices, and vendor comparison against weighted criteria, with total cost of ownership modelled over five years.
- 03
Technical due diligence
Pre-investment or pre-acquisition assessment of code quality, architecture, security, key-person risk, licence exposure and the true cost of the roadmap being presented.
- 04
Fractional CTO
Ongoing senior engineering leadership for companies that need the judgement but not yet the salary — architecture governance, hiring, vendor management, roadmap sequencing.
- 05
Team and process design
Engineering practice review: branching, code review, release cadence, on-call, incident process and the metrics worth tracking. Practical changes, not a framework rollout.
- 06
Security and compliance readiness
Gap assessment against SOC 2, ISO 27001 or sector requirements, with a remediation plan sequenced by risk and the evidence collection an auditor will ask for.
What you
actually receive.
Named artefacts, not a status report. Every item here is something you can open, run or hand to another engineer.
- 01Written assessment with findings, options and a clear recommendation
- 02Architecture diagrams reflecting the system as it actually is
- 03Sequenced remediation roadmap with effort and risk against each item
- 04Total cost of ownership model for the decision under review
- 05Executive summary written for a non-technical board
- 06Working sessions with your engineering team, not a document drop
Before you ask.
How long is a typical consulting engagement?
Architecture reviews and technology selections run two to four weeks. Due diligence is usually one to two. Fractional CTO arrangements are monthly with a rolling notice period.
Will you recommend your own implementation services?
Only if you ask. Consulting engagements are priced and delivered independently, and the recommendation frequently is to keep the work in-house or use a specialist vendor. Advice you cannot trust is worthless.
Can you work with our existing engineering team rather than around them?
Always preferred. The best outcomes come from working sessions with the people who know the system, not an external verdict delivered over their heads.
Tell us what you are building.
A short conversation is usually enough to tell whether we are the right firm for the problem. If we are not, we will say so and point you somewhere better.