Fractional CTO for Early-Stage Startups
I help non-technical founders make the right technical decisions, vet their engineering teams, and build systems that scale — without the cost of a full-time hire.
How I Can Help
Choose the engagement that fits where you are right now.
Fractional CTO Retainer
Monthly engagement (10–20 hrs/week). Technical strategy, architecture decisions, team hiring and vetting, roadmap planning.
Best for: Seed-stage startups without a technical co-founder.
Technical Architecture Review
One-time deep audit of your codebase, infrastructure, and team. Deliverable: written report with prioritized recommendations.
Best for: Startups before a funding round or major scaling event.
AI Integration Consulting
Evaluate and implement AI features into your product. RAG pipelines, LLM API integrations, agent workflows.
Best for: Non-technical founders who want to add AI but don't know where to start.
Case Studies
Real projects. Real outcomes.
Cartpanda PayPal Dispute Automation
- Challenge
- Merchants averaged 679 chargebacks per month and spent ~30 hours monthly on manual dispute resolution.
- What I did
- Served as sole full-stack developer and architect. Transformed a single Notion page spec into a fully working production app. Built both frontend and backend from scratch using React, Node.js, OpenAI API, MongoDB, and PayPal API.
- Outcome
- Analysts became 3x faster at dispute resolution. Certain dispute types now resolve automatically with zero manual review. Live in production.
Xpand AI-Powered Multi-Tenant Dashboard
- Challenge
- Needed a management console for a global network of autonomous retail stores — managing thousands of SKUs, real-time operations, and multiple client tenants.
- What I did
- Sole frontend developer and architect. Built multi-tenant console with role-based access control using Auth0 and CASL. Integrated real-time security camera feeds and live store monitoring.
- Outcome
- System supports up to 2,000 SKUs and 24,000 items. Used by clients and employees worldwide in production.
Ballerine (YC S22) KYC Infrastructure
- Challenge
- Needed to build the initial KYC/KYB application from scratch — the foundation that would attract first investors.
- What I did
- Joined as one of the first developers. Worked directly with founders to architect and build the KYC app. Built a white-label UI system and configurable step management so clients could define their own KYC flows without code changes.
- Outcome
- Became the world's leading open-source KYC/KYB platform. Backed by Y Combinator (S22), raised $5M seed. 1,500+ developers worldwide.
Jobufo Enterprise Recruitment Platform
- Challenge
- Needed a recruitment assistant integrating with 150 ATS systems, scaling across 200,000+ job postings, and feeling native to each enterprise client's brand.
- What I did
- Frontend architect and team lead. Built a white-label UI system with dynamic branding per client. Full mobile optimization across all devices.
- Outcome
- Used by Volkswagen Group, McDonald's, KFC, ERGO, ProSiebenSat.1, and Lieferando. Integrated across 200,000+ job postings.
About Alex
I'm Oleksandr (Alex) Rudin — a Fractional CTO and Senior Full-Stack Developer based in Irvine, California. Over 12+ years I've helped startups go from zero to production, led engineering teams, and shipped $500k+ in freelance work — solo.
I work with non-technical founders who need someone to translate their product vision into technical reality. Whether that's choosing the right stack, vetting engineers, or designing architecture that won't break at scale — I've done it, and I can do it for you.
- IEEE Senior Member
- EB-2 NIW — US National Interest Waiver Visa
- Upwork Top Rated Plus
- $500,000+ delivered as solo freelancer
- 12+ years full-stack: React, Node.js, TypeScript, AWS
- Led engineering teams of 12+
Let's talk about your technical challenges
No sales pitch. Just an honest conversation about your technical situation.