Luis Saffie
I own execution for growth-stage companies — engineering delivery first, then product and go-to-market. Solo, or embedded with your team.
Same problems everywhere: tech debt crushing velocity, a roadmap nobody trusts, an AI pilot nobody uses, launches sales can't sell. I don't hand you a plan and leave. I sit with your team and own the problem until it's fixed. I've done it at Amazon, Wealthsimple, HomeStars, AutoTrader, and companies I've built and sold.
Retainers from $8,000 CAD/month. What it costs →
Why Founders Choose Me
I Own It Until It's Fixed
No report and no handoff. I take the problem, do the work with your team, and stay accountable until the numbers move.
Tech, Product, and Go-to-Market
Engineering delivery is where I start. When the real blocker is the roadmap or a launch that stalls in sales, I own that too.
Solo or Embedded
One or two days a week. I sit in your standups and planning, or I build it myself when there's no team to sit with.
Sound Familiar?
These are the patterns I see in every scaling organization.
Everything Takes Too Long
Simple features take months. Your competitors ship faster with smaller teams. Tech debt is crushing velocity.
Constant Production Fires
Weekend outages. Manual, fragile deploys. Customer escalations. No time to fix root causes.
AI Is Passing You By
Your competitors are shipping 10x faster with AI-assisted workflows. Your team is still "exploring." The gap widens every month.
Talent Exodus
Good engineers won't join. Your best people are burned out and leaving. Can't compete for senior talent.
No Clear Roadmap
50 feature requests, zero prioritization. Everything's urgent. No data on what drives business outcomes.
Engineering vs. Everyone Else
Engineering says 6 months. Sales promised 2 weeks. Product doesn't know what's possible. Nobody's aligned.
Launches That Don't Land
The feature shipped. Sales doesn't know how to sell it, marketing heard about it last week, and nobody owns the number.
How the Engagement Starts
Month one of the retainer. You see real work, not a report, before you commit to the full term.
How I Work
I sit with your team. Standups, planning, the code, the pipeline. I find what's actually broken — in engineering first, then wherever it meets product and sales.
I start fixing the most urgent problem right away. You get a short update every week. No surprises.
By the end of the month, we agree on the three to five problems I own next and the numbers that show they're fixed.
After Month One
The first fix is shipped, not planned. The numbers we agreed to move have a baseline.
You know which problems I own next, ranked by what they're worth to the business.
You also have a straight read on your architecture, your team, and where AI would speed up the work.
Then You Decide
Keep me on the retainer and I keep owning the work. Or pick the problem that matters most, and I take it as one defined project with a fixed scope and end date. Either way, I finish what I start.
What We Measure
We agree on the numbers in week one, baseline them, and review them every month. No vanity metrics.
Delivery Predictability
What you committed to versus what shipped, every sprint. The number the rest of the business plans around.
Cycle Time
First commit to production. Where the weeks actually go, and which step is eating them.
Incident Load
How often you break, how long to recover, and how many engineering hours firefighting consumes.
Roadmap Confidence
Whether your top priorities are written down, agreed on by product, engineering, and sales, and tied to revenue — or relitigated every week.
AI Leverage
How much of your engineering work is AI-assisted, and what that buys you in throughput.
Infrastructure Cost
What you spend per unit of business, and how much of it is waste you can cut without risk.
Mini Case Study
Biiibo: From daily outages to predictable delivery
Worked alongside the team, stabilized production, introduced delivery rituals, and rebuilt the roadmap around revenue impact. Outages dropped, delivery timelines tightened, and leadership regained trust in engineering.
Track Record
Where I've done this work before.
Contract VP of Engineering for the AutoSync software business. Reorganized engineering around clear ownership, introduced estimation and roadmapping practices that unblocked a stalled e-commerce platform initiative, and led adoption of AI-assisted engineering workflows.
Owned workforce optimization tools deployed across all global warehouses. Reduced operational costs while improving productivity at scale.
Led infrastructure modernization with infrastructure-as-code and security practices that scaled through hypergrowth.
Eliminated daily production outages, built real-time revenue tracking, reduced delivery delays by 50%. Turned operational chaos into predictable execution.
CTO through acquisition. Repositioned the product, rebuilt the technology platform, and aligned the company around it.
I also co-founded Heirly and Dentara.
Let's Talk
Grab 30 minutes. Tell me what's broken, and I'll tell you if I can help.
Or reach me directly:
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a Technology & Operating Executive do?
I own execution. Engineering delivery comes first: shipping speed, tech debt, reliability, and AI adoption. When the real blocker is the roadmap or a launch that stalls before it reaches revenue, I own that too. I work one or two days a week, embedded with your team, or solo when there's no team to sit with. I own the problem until it's fixed.
What does owning it look like day to day?
I sit with your team. I attend your standups and planning, review the pull requests, sit in the pipeline review, and make the changes myself. There's no report and no handoff. We agree on the numbers in week one, and I'm accountable for moving them.
What's the typical engagement length?
A monthly retainer, one or two days a week, typically three to six months. In month one I find what's actually broken and start fixing the most urgent problem. From month two I own the fixes alongside your team, and we review the numbers we agreed on every month. You can also hire me for one defined project with a fixed scope and end date.
What size companies do you work with?
I work with growth-stage companies, typically $5M–$50M in revenue with 10–200 people. If your team is busy but not shipping, tech debt is crushing velocity, or what gets built isn't what sales can sell — that's exactly when I step in.
Can you get AI actually working in our engineering org?
That's the work I'm doing most of right now. Most teams have licences and a pilot nobody uses. Getting real throughput means changing how code is reviewed, tested, and shipped — not buying a tool. I led AI-assisted engineering adoption across AutoTrader's AutoSync business, and I run an AI-native company of my own, so I don't put anything in your stack I haven't shipped myself. These run as their own program, quoted on scope.
How much does it cost?
I don't bill hourly. We agree on scope and outcomes upfront, so you know the cost before we start.
- Embedded retainer — one day a week
- from $8,000 CAD/month
- Embedded retainer — two days a week
- $14,000 CAD/month
- Pre-LOI red-flag review
- $9,000 CAD
- Full technical due diligence
- from $30,000 CAD
- AI engineering programs, fixed-scope projects
- quoted on scope
Retainers typically run three to six months. Rates are in Canadian dollars. USD quoted on request.
Compare it to the alternative, not to a salary. Hiring a full-time technology executive means a recruiting fee, an equity grant, a severance obligation, and a three-month ramp before anyone knows if it worked — a two-year bet made on a two-hour interview. I start in week one, and you can end it monthly.