Daniel Engelhardt

Daniel Engelhardt · Interim CTO & tech leadership on demand

You built the product. Now you're supposed to build a team on the side.

I've been the founding CTO who writes code all day and does hiring, processes and roadmap in the evening. I help you build the team without handing over your product.

Typical situations for a CTO

  • “I'm in every review, every incident and every decision.”
  • “Code by day, management by night.”
  • “I need to hire, but I don't know how to spot a good senior.”
  • “My CEO asks when it'll be done, and I don't have an honest answer.”
  • “Process feels corporate. But we can't go on without it.”
  • “Who do I even talk to about this?”
Book a CTO-to-CTO call

30 minutes, free, not a sales call.

3×

CTO or CTO/CPO

0 → 7

team built myself

~30%

faster delivery with AI

Still writing code

Symptoms

Sound familiar?

  1. “I'm in every review, every incident and every decision.”

    Nothing gets merged without you, and your laptop comes on holiday.

  2. “Code by day, management by night.”

    Hiring, 1:1s, roadmap and investor questions all land after 6 pm.

  3. “I need to hire, but I don't know how to spot a good senior.”

    Even less so now that everyone hands in a clean take-home with AI.

  4. “My CEO asks when it'll be done, and I don't have an honest answer.”

    You estimate, it takes longer, and trust drops with every missed date.

  5. “Process feels corporate. But we can't go on without it.”

    With three people, shouting across the room worked. With eight it doesn't.

  6. “Who do I even talk to about this?”

    Not your team, and only half your CEO. You make the hardest calls alone.

And at some point the question nobody asks out loud: am I the CTO this company needs in two years?

The cause

You're not bad at your job. Your job has changed.

As the first engineer, your job was to build a working product. You did, or there would be no team. Now your job is to make sure others can build well. That's a different skill, and nobody taught it to you.

The good news: it can be learned, and you don't have to give up everything you enjoy.

Case Study · Evolute

What that looked like at Evolute

Read the case study

Services

Three formats, depending on how much you need

Audit

For whom
You want to know where your team really stands and what to tackle first
What we do
I spend two weeks inside the team: conversations, code, workflow, releases
Scope
2 weeks, fixed price
After
A diagnosis of problems, solutions and priorities you can take to your CEO

Build engagement

For whom
You want to build team, processes and hiring now and need capacity for it
What we do
I work with you in the team: rituals, release process, hiring pipeline, roadmap, onboarding
Scope
1–2 days a week, 3–6 months
After
You lead a team that delivers without you

Sparring

For whom
You're building it yourself and want an experienced peer for the hard calls
What we do
Regular calls on whatever's on your mind: architecture, people, your CEO, budget
Scope
e.g. twice a month, fixed monthly fee
After
You make decisions faster and with more confidence

How I work

How a build engagement runs

  1. weeks 1–2

    Audit

    We go through code, team and workflow together. I talk to your people.

    Outcome: you see your team from the outside for once.

  2. week 3

    Plan

    We decide what you hand off, what you keep and what comes first.

    Outcome: a plan you can explain to your CEO in ten minutes.

  3. months 2–3

    Build

    I set up processes, hiring and rituals with you and work alongside you, down to the code.

    Outcome: the team works to a rhythm and you're no longer in every review.

  4. from month 4

    Let go

    You lead, I become your sparring partner and then unnecessary.

    Outcome: your holiday is a holiday again.

Results

Daniel Engelhardt

About

I've walked the same path.

At keepist I co-founded the company and built everything myself: architecture, development, DevOps, operations. At Evolute I joined as the second CTO when only one backend developer was left from the engineering team. I rebuilt the team to seven people, moved the apps from native to React Native and learned what nobody had told me before: letting go is the hardest engineering task.

We introduced ownership at every step, moved product decisions to continuous discovery and made all of development AI-native, with around 30% shorter delivery time. I still write code. So I know what I'm asking of you when I say: hand this off.

Request the full CV

Tech Stack

What I actually work with

AI & LLM

Cursor IDE Claude Code Cursor Cloud Agents Automated AI code review (CodeRabbit, Cursor Bug Bot) Self-hosted models on Azure Agentic workflows

Product & Process

Continuous discovery Opportunity-driven prioritisation Scrum Linear Jira PostHog A/B testing User research

Engineering

TypeScript Node.js React React Native Next.js TanStack Start TanStack Query TanStack AI Express SQL PostgreSQL MongoDB Firebase Supabase REST APIs Jest

Platform & DevOps

Docker Kubernetes Azure Google Cloud AWS CI/CD GitLab CI E2E & integration testing GDPR / compliance

Built by me

Bonus: hiring in the age of AI

Spotting a good developer has got harder since every take-home looks clean with AI. That's why I built Assessory.dev: structured assessments, submission analysis and interview prep.

Check out Assessory.dev
Assessory product preview - generate role-specific assessments and track candidates

FAQ

Is my CEO trying to replace me?

Not if you bring me in. I work for your success. Technical decisions stay with you.

How do I get my CEO to approve the budget?

I'll help you with a one-page case in their language: what it costs, what it brings, what happens if nothing happens. Or we have the conversation as three.

Does my CEO need to be in the first call?

No, we can talk one to one first. For an engagement we bring them in: I work for the whole company, and that only works when the two of you pull in the same direction.

I want to keep coding. Is that possible?

Yes. The goal isn't for you to stop working, it's for you to choose what you work on.

What does it cost?

Audit and sparring have fixed prices; a build engagement depends on scope. I'll give you numbers in the call.

Contact

Let's talk for 30 minutes, CTO to CTO.

Tell me where things are stuck. I'll tell you honestly what I'd do next in your position, even if you don't need me for it.

Book a CTO-to-CTO call

Free, not a sales call.

Location

Düsseldorf