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CTO 1 on 1

CTO Deep Dive — 2 Hours, Clear Plan

Fast, focused, and outcome-driven — up to 2-hour 1 on 1 session where we tackle your most pressing technical or organizational challenge and leave with a concrete plan.

Zeljko at work

Real-World CTO Challenges & Solutions

Legacy Modernization & Innovation

E-commerce Platform Migration

HIGH Migration

Moving from Magento 1.x to Shopify Plus while maintaining 10,000+ SKUs, custom integrations with ERP systems, and zero downtime during peak shopping seasons.

Shopify Plus ERP Integration Data Migration Zero Downtime

Developer Experience vs. Stability Trap

HIGH Architecture

"We're stuck on React 17 because upgrading breaks our entire component library, but our best developers are unhappy because they want to use modern tools like Svelte, Solid and Bun."

React 17 Component Library Developer Tools

Technical Debt Avalanche

CRITICAL Risk

"Knight Capital's 18-year trading empire collapsed overnight when old code caused $440 million in unauthorized stock purchases because they repurposed legacy trading algorithms without proper testing."

Legacy Code Trading Systems Testing

Scaling Under Resource Constraints

MEDIUM Performance

"Our PostgreSQL database buckles every time we hit 1,000 concurrent users, but we can't afford the $50K migration to a distributed architecture until next year."

PostgreSQL Database Scaling Resource Constraints

Over-Engineering vs Under-Engineering Dilemma

MEDIUM Cost

"We spent 6 months building a microservices architecture for our 500-user SaaS app and now our AWS bill is $25K/month when a simple monolith would have cost us $1-2K or less."

Microservices AWS Costs Architecture Choice

Integration Complexity Nightmare

HIGH Architecture

"Our 15-year-old ERP system speaks XML while our new React app needs JSON APIs, so 80% of our sprint is spent building middleware instead of customer features."

ERP Integration XML to JSON Middleware

Infrastructure Bottlenecks at Scale

CRITICAL Performance

"Discord's ScyllaDB cluster collapsed during an OS upgrade when one degraded disk caused a 50-minute authentication outage for 150+ million users because they couldn't handle the authentication lookups under load."

ScyllaDB Load Balancing Authentication

Product & Quality

Speed vs Quality Paradox

CRITICAL Quality

"HealthCare.gov had only 43% uptime at launch because they skipped caching, performance testing, and redundancy planning to meet the political deadline."

Performance Testing Caching Redundancy

Technical Debt Masquerading as Business Velocity

HIGH Debt

"We hardcoded the 8.5% tax rate in 47 different files to ship our e-commerce feature on time - now tax season requires a 3-developer manhunt to update every instance."

Hardcoded Values Tax Rate Code Duplication

Quality Assurance Resource Shortfall

MEDIUM Quality

"Our QA team can test 20 features per sprint but development is shipping 35 - critical bugs are slipping into production because we have one tester for every four developers."

QA Resources Testing Capacity Bug Detection

Code Quality Visibility Gap

MEDIUM Visibility

"I can't explain to the CEO why we need 2 sprints to refactor our authentication system when it 'works fine' - but every new login feature takes 3x longer because of our spaghetti code."

Code Quality Authentication Technical Debt

End-to-End Testing Complexity

HIGH Testing

"Our checkout process works perfectly in staging but fails in production every Friday at 3 PM when our payment processor switches to weekend mode - we can't replicate their environment."

E2E Testing Payment Processor Environment Parity

Production Bug Mysteries

CRITICAL Environment

"A single production bug cost us $2,000 in salaries and 8 hours of developer time across 4 team members because our staging environment uses SQLite while production runs PostgreSQL."

Environment Parity SQLite vs PostgreSQL Debugging Cost

Team & Collaboration

Talent Shortage and Skill Gap Crisis

CRITICAL Talent

"LinkedIn's ATS rejected our best senior engineer candidate because she had a 3-month employment gap, while AI-generated resumes from bootcamp grads sailed through to final interviews."

ATS Bias Hiring Process Candidate Quality

Remote Team Coordination Friction

HIGH Coordination

"Our Berlin team pushes code at 6 PM that breaks our San Francisco team's 9 AM standup, and by the time we debug it, Sydney has already started their sprint planning with broken builds."

Time Zones Code Deployment Team Handoff

Scaling Team Leadership Structures

MEDIUM Leadership

"When we grew from 15 to 45 engineers, our one-hour team standup became a status theater where developers waited 45 minutes to speak for 2 minutes about yesterday's work."

Team Scaling Standup Efficiency Team Structure

Cross-Functional Alignment Breakdown

MEDIUM Alignment

"Engineering spent 3 months building a perfect real-time analytics dashboard that marketing can't use because they needed simple daily email reports, not live data streams."

Cross-Functional Requirements Communication

Communication and Context Switching Overload

HIGH Communication

"Our senior developer gets interrupted by Slack 47 times per day and says it takes 23 minutes to get back into deep focus after each notification - actual coding happens after 6 PM."

Slack Interruptions Context Switching Deep Focus

Remote Work Visibility and Growth Challenges

HIGH Remote Work

"Remote developers are checking emails 40% more after hours just to stay visible while office employees get promoted because they're in the 'casual hallway conversations' where real decisions happen."

Remote Work Visibility Career Growth

How It Works

1

Book your slot

Choose a time via Calendly (or email me). You'll get a short prep questionnaire to help us make the most of our time together.

2

Prep together

Share the challenge, context, and what success looks like so I can come prepared with relevant insights and examples.

3

Deep Dive — 2 hours

We'll clarify the root cause, explore 2–3 strategic options, and co-create an actionable plan (steps, owners, milestones). You'll also receive a concise summary afterwards with clear next steps.

Who This Is For

Technical leaders facing complex challenges that need strategic thinking and practical solutions

CTOs & VPs of Engineering

Leading technical strategy and managing complex architectural decisions

Directors & Tech Leads

Stepping into leadership roles and managing growing teams

Technical Founders

Building and scaling technical products from the ground up

You should book this if:

?

You're stuck

On a problem that needs fresh perspective and strategic thinking

🎯

You want clarity

Clear direction and actionable solutions, not theoretical advice

🤝

You value collaboration

Peer-level partnership without the premium consultant pricing

Investment

$250

Up to 2 hours of focused advisory and a concise action plan.

Book Your Deep Dive Now

Why This Works

The goal of these sessions is to bring clarity, breakthrough and organized thinking to difficult problems you might face. This doesn't mean we will solve all of your problems right away (sorry) but help you untangle what is a problem and how to move forward.

"The most valuable thing wasn't the solution—it was finally understanding what problem we were actually trying to solve."

— Engineering Director, Series B startup

Real-world experience, practical focus

I’ve led engineering teams, modernized complex systems, and advised companies at critical inflection points. A Deep Dive gives you a fresh set of eyes, fast pressure‑testing of your thinking, and a concrete, practical plan to move forward.

What you actually get

  • Practical outcomes — not theory
  • Highest-impact actions prioritized
  • Clear ownership and short milestones
  • Measurable progress from day one

Typical session results

Teams leave with an initial remediation plan for critical technical debt, a small-scope experiment to validate a product assumption, or a clear roadmap for scaling infrastructure safely.

What happens after

Sessions are confidential and tailored to your context. After the call you’ll receive a concise summary with next steps, owners, estimated effort, and suggested checkpoints to keep momentum. If you want follow-up support, we can scope short engagements to help implement the plan.

Can we help?

Let’s move your project forward.

Tell us about your idea — we’ll figure out how to help, one step at a time.

Start

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