Fractional CTO in Manchester. I help founders and companies make sound technical decisions — what to build, who to hire, and what to actually do about AI.
I also design, build and run my own products, and I write about all of it.
Open to new clients. → How I can help
Fractional CTO work for founders and teams who need senior technical judgment, not a full-time hire.
What I do →Products I design, build and run solo — StayUpfront, Dictator, Weighted Down, Belfry. The day job that keeps the consulting advice grounded.
See what I've built →Code, products, weight, and whatever else is on my mind — the blog goes back to 2022.
Read the blog →No team ever shipped faster by keeping its options open. And the cost of being wrong has never been lower — most technical calls are cheaper to make, and cheaper to undo, than they've ever been.
The expensive thing isn't picking wrong, it's the months spent not picking at all. A team that keeps reopening the same argument has no momentum to lose, because it never built any.
Pick a direction, get everyone building, and change your mind when there's a real reason to.
I may be a certified Claude-fanboi, but Anthropic sure do make it hard to love them. Rather than a request they can deny, this should be a simple toggle switch on their platform settings.
Bluesky took a 24-hour DDoS in April, came back with no data loss and a straight account of what happened. That's not a feature, it's a trust signal — and the hardest thing for a rival to copy. Nobody churns over a nicer composer. They churn because you went dark and got cagey.
Got a technical decision you'd like a second opinion on? hello@robgough.net