NICOLAS CAVA · TECHNICAL COUNSEL FOR GROWING COMPANIES
I bring order, leverage, and execution quality to software organizations.
Seventeen years building software and the teams that ship it. I work with founders, CEOs, and boards as a fractional CTO: making the technical decisions that decide whether the company makes it.
FREE · NO PITCH · AN HONEST READ EITHER WAY
INDEX / 2026
- Years in software
- 0
- Engineers led
- 0+
- Companies built & scaled
- 0
- Range
- Pre-seed → IPO
The practice.
01 — SIX WAYS I'M USED
01
Fractional CTO
Embedded technical leadership. I own the roadmap, the architecture, and the engineering org, part-time, at full accountability.
02
Technical due diligence
For investors and acquirers: a clear-eyed read on the codebase, the team, and the risks, before the money moves.
03
Product engineering leadership
I take a team that ships sometimes and make it a team that ships weekly. Planning, review, and delivery discipline included.
04
Architecture
Decisions that survive the next two years: what to build, what to buy, what to kill, and what it costs to be wrong.
05
Delivery rescue
When the release is six months late and nobody can say why. I find the real blocker, then remove it.
06
AI & software strategy
Where AI actually earns its keep in your product and your process, and where it's expensive theater.
How I engage.
02 — OPERATING MODEL
Advisory
Weekly 1:1 sessions, roadmap and planning reviews, tech stack guidance. Strategic weight without an embedded role.
$3,000/mo
Fractional CTO
Everything in Advisory, plus team and architecture reviews, hiring and onboarding, vendor decisions, and board-ready reporting.
$7,000/mo
Every engagement runs on structured sessions, fast async access, and deliverables you can act on. You keep everything we build.
Full pricing details →How engagements work →Start with a call →
03 — WHY THIS IS DIFFERENT
Not an agency. Not a marketplace. One senior operator who has run engineering at companies from two people to IPO, working directly with you.
No handoffs
The person you meet on the first call is the person in your codebase, your hiring loops, and your board meetings.
Writing over meetings
Decisions land in written memos with reasoning attached. You can re-read them, challenge them, and hold me to them.
Built to leave
The goal is a team and a system that don't need me. Every engagement ends with a transition plan, not a dependency.
Skin in the argument
I'll tell you when the honest answer is "don't build this" or "you don't need me." That's what the first call is for.
On the record.
04 — PROOF
An effective leader who is among those few and far in-between. His technical background enables him to make informed decisions for an engineering team with the relevant context, and allows him to empathize with engineers on a deep level.
One of the best software developer I know. His many years of experience are reflected in the quality of his work, and in how he raises the level of everyone around him.
LED ENGINEERING & TEAMS AT
05 — OPERATING PRINCIPLES
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Rushed architecture is the most expensive thing a startup buys.
Every claim gets evidence. Estimates, risks, and progress are shown, not asserted.
Small teams, senior people. Headcount is a cost, not a metric. Throughput is the metric.
Sustainable pace wins. Burnout is a delivery risk. I plan so that nobody works weekends, including me.
The business decides. Technology serves the P&L. When a technical ideal fights a business reality, reality wins.
FIG. 1 — THE OPERATOR
06 — ABOUT
Seventeen years in the room where it ships.
I've been the first engineer, the team lead, and the executive. I've led distributed teams across timezones at Zendesk, built and scaled nineteen companies, and taken products from a whiteboard sketch to systems serving millions.
The pattern I see everywhere: growing companies don't fail on ideas, they fail on execution. My work is making sure yours doesn't. I also write daily notes for founders on exactly that.
07 — CONTACT
Twenty-five minutes. An honest read on where you stand.
Bring your hardest technical question. You'll leave with a direction, whether or not we work together.
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