Senior technology leadership without the full-time overhead.
Strategy, architecture, vendor decisions, AI direction, and team oversight on a part-time basis that fits your stage.
For decisions too important to leave to guesswork.
When you need senior judgment before permanent headcount.
You're scaling fast and need a technical co-pilot
For founders and leadership teams who need senior technical judgment before a full-time CTO hire makes sense.
You're embedding AI and need someone who's done it
For operators, product teams, and executives deciding where AI belongs in real workflows.
You need architecture oversight without a full-time hire
For teams modernizing platforms, integrations, data flows, and AI-ready systems.
A senior technical operator in your corner.
Commitment
Part-time, typically 8-16 hrs/month
Duration
3-month minimum, rolling thereafter
Format
Remote with optional on-site days
Pricing
Typically $4K-$10K/month depending on scope
Founder-led means accountable technical leadership.
Shahzad Masud brings 15+ years across solution architecture, principal engineering, enterprise systems, AI delivery, and C-level technology decisions. That includes build-vs-buy calls, AI vendor selection, platform modernization, engineering team scaling, and the uncomfortable tradeoffs between speed, cost, risk, and technical debt.
Masuds exists for teams that need senior technical judgment and working software, not another strategy deck. The engagement is designed to give founders and executives a technical operator who can challenge assumptions, de-risk architecture, and help the team decide what to fund next.
Build vs buy and vendor selection
AI roadmap and governance decisions
Engineering scale-up and delivery oversight