Fractional CTO · Software Rescue · Bend + Central Oregon · Remote
I'm Steve — a software architect with 25 years of getting to the bottom of what people actually need, then building it. Founders and business owners bring me projects that are failing, stalled, or still on a napkin. I tell you the truth, draw the plan, and build or rescue it with senior judgment at AI speed.
SHEET 01 Existing conditions
None of them are code problems, exactly. They're "nobody senior has told you the truth yet" problems.
Condition A
You (or an agency, or a very confident tool) built it fast, and the demo was great. Now every new feature breaks two old ones, nobody can explain how it works, and you're one bad deploy from losing customers.
Condition B
Months in. Budget mostly spent. The developers keep saying "two more weeks," and you have no way to tell whether you're 90% done or 90% doomed. You need an honest second opinion more than you need more code.
Condition C
Spreadsheets feeding spreadsheets, data re-keyed by hand, reports assembled at midnight. You know software could fix this — but every quote you've gotten feels like a coin flip with your money.
SHEET 02 Scope of work
SOW-01 · Diagnose
| Price | $2,500–$5,000 fixed |
| Duration | About one week |
| You get | A written turnaround plan |
A senior architect reads your codebase, infrastructure, and project history — then tells you the truth. What's broken, what's salvageable, and what to do next, in priority order, in language you don't need a CS degree to act on.
Best for: AI-built or agency-built apps that are wobbling, and projects you've lost confidence in.
SOW-02 · Design
| Price | $7,500–$15,000 fixed |
| Duration | 2–4 weeks |
| You get | Architecture, wireframes, phased plan |
Before you hire developers or point an AI at your idea: we dig out what you actually need — which is usually different from what you'd have asked for — and I sketch it until you say "that's it, that's what I meant." You keep a plan any team can execute.
Best for: New builds, rebuilds, and anything about to get expensive.
SOW-03 · Lead & build
| Price | $3,000–$8,000 / month |
| Duration | Ongoing retainer |
| You get | A CTO's judgment, part-time |
Senior technical leadership without the senior salary. I oversee your developers — human or AI — guard the architecture, translate between you and the code, and keep the plan honest. When it makes sense, I build it myself: 25 years of architecture driving today's AI tools.
Best for: Companies whose product outgrew "we'll figure it out."
Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute call. If I'm not the right fit, I'll say so — and point you toward someone or something better.
SHEET 03 Method
"It's like you got inside my head and found out what I was really thinking — even when I didn't know how to explain it myself."
— a client, after discovery
What you ask for and what you need are usually two different things, and the gap between them is where budgets die. Most developers build what you asked for. My specialty is finding what's underneath — asking until the real problem surfaces, then sketching it so you can see your own idea clearly, sometimes for the first time.
Then I design for all three constraints at once: form, function, and cost. A system your users find obvious, your developers can maintain, and your budget survives.
That's also why the AI era doesn't worry me — it's the era I've been training for. The tools write code faster than ever. Someone still has to know what to build, and what will fall over.
Principal · 25 yrs · Redmond, OR
SHEET 04 Precedents
Startups to Fortune 100, across 25+ years. A few representative drawings from the flat file:
Fortune 100 · E-commerce
Architected a custom microservices e-commerce framework for a Fortune 100 client — the foundation other teams built on.
Fortune 100 · Data
Built a near-real-time, geospatially referenced data-view application — complex state, heavy data, an interface people could actually read.
2021–present · Consultancy
Five years as white-label senior architect and engineer for a Portland software consultancy, across dozens of client products. Their name on the work; my architecture under it.
2006–present · Intrinsitech
Web apps, mobile apps, and the unglamorous integrations that make businesses run — Salesforce, payroll, payments — through my own practice since 2006.
| Engineer | 25+ years |
| Architect | 15+ years |
| Designer | 10+ years |
| Team lead | Teams of 3–10, 5+ years |
Most of my recent work shipped under other companies' names — that's the nature of white-label consulting. Specific case walk-throughs available in conversation, references on request.
SHEET 05 Field notes
Free field guide
The five most expensive patterns I've watched sink projects over 25 years — including the newest one: "the AI-built MVP works… until it doesn't." Short, specific, and readable in ten minutes.
Send me the guideSHEET 06 Start here
A free 30-minute call. You describe the situation; I'll tell you what I'd do about it — including when the answer is "you don't need me." Based in Redmond, Oregon — in person around Bend, Redmond, Sisters, and the rest of Central Oregon; remote everywhere else.