Luis Saffie
I embed into growth-stage companies to get engineering shipping again — and to get AI actually working in your codebase, not stuck in a pilot. Tech debt, slow delivery, teams pulling in different directions: I find the real problem and fix it myself.
Same problems everywhere: tech debt crushing velocity, teams that can't ship, founders and engineers speaking different languages — and an AI gap that widens every quarter you wait. I've fixed this dozens of times, at AutoTrader, Amazon, Wealthsimple, HomeStars, and companies I've built and sold.
Retainers from $14,000 CAD/month. What it costs →
Why Founders Choose Me
I Deliver, Not Just Diagnose
I don't send a deck and disappear. I work alongside your team, write code, fix architecture, and build the systems that scale.
Battle-Tested at Scale
Scaled HomeStars to acquisition. Built Amazon warehouse optimization globally. Led engineering at Wealthsimple. I've seen every failure mode.
Operator Who Ships
I don't sit in a corner office. I embed with your team, lead from the code, and align product, engineering, and business outcomes. One operator, end-to-end execution.
Sound Familiar?
These are the patterns I see in every scaling organization.
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.
Engineering vs. Everyone Else
Engineering says 6 months. Sales promised 2 weeks. Product doesn't know what's possible. Nobody's aligned.
Everything Takes Too Long
Simple features take months. Your competitors ship faster with smaller teams. Tech debt is crushing velocity.
No Clear Roadmap
50 feature requests, zero prioritization. Everything's urgent. No data on what drives business outcomes.
Constant Production Fires
Weekend outages. Emergency patches. Customer escalations. No time to fix root causes.
Talent Exodus
Good engineers won't join. Your best people are burned out and leaving. Can't compete for senior talent.
Manual, Fragile Deployments
Still deploying manually. No CI/CD. Testing is an afterthought. Every release is a nail-biter.
How the Engagement Starts
Month one of the retainer. You see real work and real findings before you commit to the full term.
How I Work
I embed with your team. Interview key people, sit in critical meetings, review architecture and processes. I diagnose what's actually broken.
Weekly check-ins. No surprises. You know exactly what I'm finding and where we're headed.
End of month: comprehensive assessment with 3-5 high-impact fixes, prioritized by business value.
What You Receive
- 3-5 prioritized improvements with business impact quantified
- Concrete implementation roadmap with timelines
- Architecture review with technical recommendations
- Team structure assessment and hiring roadmap
- Process and tooling gaps with modern alternatives
Then You Decide
I can stay on retainer and keep executing. I can take one defined project and finish it. Or I hand it off to your team with a clear execution plan. Your call.
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, 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
Organizations I've scaled, from hypergrowth to acquisition — and what I'm building now
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.
As CTO, repositioned product strategy, rebuilt technology platform, and aligned organization—leading directly to acquisition.
Co-founder · Building now
HeirlyA private platform for buying and selling established businesses, built on one belief: the right heir matters. Every buyer, seller, and advisor is vetted before joining. AI turns a focused set of strategic questions into structured profiles and listings, then curates matches on real market data and stated intent — so relevance, not volume, defines the experience.
This is where the AI-native engineering practice I bring to client work gets built and pressure-tested. I'm not recommending anything I haven't shipped myself.
Let's Talk
Grab 30 minutes. Tell me what's broken, and I'll tell you if I can help.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does a contract CTO do?
I embed directly into your company to lead technology, product, and business execution. Unlike consultants who advise from the outside, I work alongside your team — writing code, fixing architecture, and building the systems that scale. You get an executive operator, not a slide deck.
How is this different from hiring a consultant or advisor?
Consultants diagnose and leave. I diagnose and fix. I sit with your team, attend your standups, review your PRs, and personally implement the changes. The difference is I'm accountable for outcomes, not deliverables.
What's the typical engagement length?
A monthly retainer, typically three to six months. Month one I embed with your team and diagnose what's actually broken. From month two we execute — I lead 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 engineering and the business aren't aligned — 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'm not recommending anything 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 — two days a week
- from $14,000 CAD/month
- Embedded retainer — three days a week
- $20,000 CAD/month
- Board sessions, architecture reviews, deep dives
- $3,000 CAD/day
- 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.