You are paying a development agency but cannot independently assess its estimates, architecture, or recommendations.
Ongoing technical leadership
A technical counterpart for the decisions that matter.
Get experienced, independent input on architecture, engineering priorities, and the people building your product. Work directly with Jonathan to connect technical decisions to the business you need to run.
Talk to JonathanStarting at $1,500/month
A defined monthly engagement for recurring technical decisions. The proposal names the meetings, review work, communication channels, and response expectations included at this starting level.
THE WHOLE SYSTEM, IN VIEW
Business strategyArchitecture
Clarity at the center.IntegrationSecurity & engineering
Clarity at the center.STRATEGY ↔ EXECUTIONA connected perspective
IS THIS THE RIGHT FIT?
A senior perspective, where you need it.
- Founders who manage developers without a senior technical counterpart.
- Companies that need CTO-level judgment without a full-time executive hire.
- Engineering leaders who want another experienced perspective on consequential decisions.
SITUATIONS I CAN HELP WITH01 02 03
The roadmap keeps growing while technical debt, delivery constraints, and business priorities compete for attention.
A hiring, cloud, build-versus-buy, or architecture decision needs more scrutiny than your team can currently give it.
WHAT YOU LEAVE WITH
Direction with practical depth.
A clearer technical direction, an informed view of the tradeoffs, and a practical way to hold your team or development partner accountable.
A recurring decision forum
Bring a proposal, estimate, hiring question, or architecture decision. Leave with a recommendation, its tradeoffs, and the next action recorded for the people responsible.
Architecture and roadmap guidance
Review important design choices, sequence technical debt, and make room for the work that supports your commercial goals.
Independent vendor oversight
Evaluate development proposals, estimates, delivery concerns, and technical explanations with someone who can ask the next question.
Leadership where it is missing
Help shape technical hiring, engineering expectations, and product conversations. Represent the technical perspective in agreed meetings.
Practical AI adoption guidance
Assess where AI-assisted engineering or a bounded automation pilot fits your team. Make review requirements, data access, and success measures part of the decision. Pilot implementation is scoped separately.
THE ENGAGEMENTA clear process.
01 02 03
A clear process.
Shared expectations.
Establish the context
Understand the business, the team, and the decisions in front of you. Agree on a useful scope and working cadence.
Work through the decisions
Review the relevant systems and evidence, challenge assumptions, and make the options and tradeoffs understandable.
Keep direction connected to delivery
Revisit priorities as the work progresses and help your team or vendor turn recommendations into decisions they can act on.
SCOPE & BOUNDARIESKnow what
Know what
you’re engaging.
Advisory is a defined leadership engagement. It does not include unlimited development, general IT support, staff augmentation, or 24/7 on-call coverage. Hands-on work can be scoped separately when it is useful.
What happens in the first month?
We map the product, team, development partner, and decisions already in progress. We choose a short list of priorities, establish a decision log, and agree how recommendations reach the people doing the work. The proposal sets the meeting and review allocation.
Can you work with our existing development agency?
Yes. I can help you evaluate the work, ask better questions, and agree on technical priorities with the agency. The aim is a more effective working relationship with clear expectations.
How much access does the monthly engagement include?
We agree on meeting frequency, communication channels, response expectations, and the decisions covered before starting. The starting price is not an unlimited-access arrangement.
Do we need to replace our technical lead?
No. Advisory can support a founder, engineering manager, or existing technical lead. We define who owns each decision so the engagement adds clarity to your team.
WORKING TOGETHER
What the working relationship looks like.
Start with the decision you need help making. The monthly proposal turns that need into a specific allocation of meetings, review work, and between-meeting communication.
Start with a focused first month
Map the product, current commitments, team, and development partner. Review the decisions already in motion and create a short priority list with named owners.
Bring the work to the conversation
Use the agreed meeting rhythm to review an estimate, proposal, roadmap, hiring decision, or design. Share relevant material in advance so the discussion can reach a recommendation.
Keep decisions visible
Record the options, recommendation, next action, and owner. Review progress with the founder, technical lead, or agency rather than leaving advice in a meeting transcript.
Agree access and availability
The proposal specifies meeting frequency, review allocation, communication channels, response expectations, and engagement terms. Hands-on implementation can be scoped around the decisions that need it.
SEE THE WORKUseful before
Useful before
we speak.
Open a sample or planning tool. No signup required.
Planning tool
An AI pilot scorecard your team can use
Define a workflow, a baseline, representative tests, review effort, and a decision on whether an AI pilot deserves a wider rollout.
Open resource ChecklistA founder’s development agency review checklist
Questions and evidence to bring to a review of estimates, delivery, access, and technical ownership with your development partner.
Open resourceA DIRECT CONVERSATIONHave a technology decision
Have a technology decision
you need to get right?
Tell me what’s happening. I’ll let you know whether I can help
and how I’d approach the next step.