Fractional CTO · DevOps · Platform Engineering
Platform & DevOps
engineering leadership,
when it has most impact.
I help startups and scale-ups build the technical foundations they need to grow: cloud-native platforms, DevOps maturity, and the engineering leadership to tie it together.
Services
Fractional CTO
Senior technical leadership on a part-time basis.
- —Engineering strategy and roadmap ownership
- —Hiring, team structure, and engineering culture
- —Stakeholder and board-level technical communication
- —Leadership across product, engineering, and the business
A fraction of a full-time CTO salary. No equity, no benefits overhead.
Platform & DevOps Advisory
Build the platform your engineering team deserves.
- —Cloud-native architecture and Kubernetes platform design
- —CI/CD pipeline maturity and developer experience
- —Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Pulumi, Helm)
- —Observability, reliability, and incident management
Priced per engagement.
Technical Due Diligence
Clear-eyed assessments for investors and founders.
- —Codebase, architecture, and technical debt review
- —Engineering team capability and process evaluation
- —Risk identification and a concrete plan for what to fix
- —Written report with findings and recommendations
Priced per engagement.
Most engagements take one of three shapes. The right fit depends on where you are and what you need.
Advisory Retainer
Ongoing strategic input, typically one day per week. Right for companies that need a senior technical voice consistently, whether shaping engineering culture as a fractional CTO or providing ongoing platform and infrastructure leadership.
Embedded Sprint
Hands-on work focused on a specific problem: rebuilding a CI/CD pipeline, landing a Kubernetes platform, migrating to IaC, or untangling cloud spend. Fixed duration, with agreed deliverables at the end.
One-off Assessment
A fixed-scope technical audit or due diligence review with a written output. Covers codebases, architectures, and platform maturity. Ideal for investors, acquirers, or founders who need an independent picture before a decision.
Seen enough? Let’s talk.
Built on real experience
It started at school in the 1990s, learning to program out of pure curiosity. Open source brought me into daily contact with engineers far more technically gifted than I would ever be. That was the most clarifying moment of my career: my calling wasn't to match them, but to use what I did have to help them do their best work.
That question became the subject of my PhD: how do open source projects sustain productivity as they scale? The conviction it confirmed, and that I've carried through every role since, is that the most powerful lever is structural. You can coach and lead indefinitely; teams will always hit a ceiling if the platforms, pipelines, and tools they depend on are working against them.
Developer productivity research pointed me toward DevOps; DevOps pointed toward platform engineering: building the internal infrastructure that makes fast, reliable delivery not just possible, but the default. The structural answer the research was always pointing toward.
Senior Manager, Platform Engineering
Senior Manager, Platform Engineering
Managing Director, Germany
Director, Platform Engineering
Senior Manager, Payments
Director of Engineering
Open source roots
I've contributed to open source since before it was a career strategy. My early work was in KDE and the Zope/Plone ecosystem. Both have thousands of contributors, proper governance, and software that people genuinely depend on.
Beyond code, I engage with open source as a policy and community matter. I'm a Fellow of the OpenForum Academy and a Fellow of the Free Software Foundation Europe, and have served on the programme committee of the International Conference on Open Source Systems.
The principles have stuck: open interfaces, community over control, and systems that outlast any single contributor.
Conference speaking
I’ve spoken at academic, community, and industry events across Europe, covering platform engineering, DevOps, open source, and developer experience.
Interested in having me speak at your event or conference? Get in touch.
Trusted by founders and engineering teams across Europe and beyond.
“His broad network of business relationships was able to help us with tough challenges and is a testament to his excellent character and style.”
“If your engineering team needs a people leader with a strong background in agility, you would be lucky to work with Paul.”
One of the best leads I've met during my career. He combines the three most important aspects one expects from a team lead: deep technical knowledge, great mentorship, and leadership towards a shared goal.
What makes Paul so great is his strong background in agile methodology, technical expertise, and a very human-centric approach to management.
Paul has a deep understanding of core technology, which in combination with his leadership acumen is hard to top.
Paul is an incredible leader, drawing from an interest in servant leadership. He communicates clearly across teams with diverse language skills and perspectives.
He impressed me several times with his ability to read customers within no time: their needs, their wishes, their fears.
When I think about the people that have made a positive impact on my career, I think of Paul. He always ensured that we were on track and headed in the right direction.
He has always worked in a manner of consulting the engineering teams and helping improve productivity rather than micromanaging.
Any employee would be lucky to have Paul as a manager.
Paul is a hugely capable and knowledgeable FOSS advocate who can turn his hand to almost everything.
A perfect fit for servant leadership of most teams I can think of.
Not sure if
this is a fit?
A 30-minute call costs nothing. Tell me where you are, what's blocking you, and I'll figure out whether I can help.