Fractional CTO & VP Engineering

Ship Faster. Win Your Market. Scale With Confidence.

Your startup has product-market fit and momentum — but your engineering team can't keep up. I embed as your fractional CTO to eliminate execution risk, accelerate delivery, and give you the engineering advantage you need to win.

25+
Years Building & Scaling Teams
IPO
Grew UserTesting from Eng #2 to IPO
21x
Faster Release Cycles Achieved
Pre-Seed → C
Experience Across Every Stage
Companies I've Scaled
Paul Hepworth — Founder, Startup Slipstream
Paul Hepworth
Founder, Startup Slipstream LLC
  • UserTesting.com 2nd engineer. Built the engineering foundation, grew the team, and helped take the company to IPO.
  • Guru (GetGuru.com) VP of Engineering. Scaled the team, improved engineering processes, and drove platform growth.
  • Spekit CTO / SVP R&D. Inherited a 3-week manual release cycle and got the team shipping multiple times per day with higher quality.
  • Startup Slipstream Now helping founders at every stage fix execution risk and build high-performing engineering teams.

A Founder-Tested Leader Who Delivers Results — Fast

Founders hire me because I've been in the trenches. I've built companies from scratch, joined as the 2nd engineer at a company that went to IPO, and stepped into struggling engineering orgs as CTO to turn them around. I know what it takes to win — and I know how to get your team there.

I'm not a consultant who hands you a deck and walks away. I embed with your team, take ownership, and drive execution. Founders I've worked with will tell you: the impact is fast, and the improvements stick long after.

6+
Startups Scaled
USF & Stanford
Education
47+
Engineers Managed at Scale
Pre-Seed → IPO
Full Startup Lifecycle

Your Competitors Aren't Waiting. Neither Should You.

As a founder, you need your engineering team to be a competitive advantage — not a bottleneck. I embed as a fractional executive and drive the changes that accelerate your company's progress.

Accelerate Time to Market

Go from painful, multi-week release cycles to shipping multiple times per day. Get features to customers faster, respond to the market quicker, and outpace the competition.

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Build a Team That Scales

Install the engineering practices, velocity metrics, and team culture that let you scale from 5 engineers to 50 without breaking. Build organizational confidence from engineering up.

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De-Risk for Growth & Funding

Eliminate the technical debt, infrastructure fragility, and quality gaps that make investors nervous. Build the automation and reliability foundation that signals you're ready to scale.

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How I Turned Spekit's Engineering Into a Competitive Advantage

When Spekit's founder brought me in as CTO, the team was stuck: quality issues were eroding customer trust, and a 3-week release cycle meant they couldn't compete. Here's how we turned it around.

⚠ Before

  • 3-week manual release cycle
  • Major product quality & performance issues
  • Manual, error-prone infrastructure
  • Low team morale & organizational confidence
  • Slow, unpredictable delivery

✓ After

  • Multiple releases per day
  • Dramatically higher product quality
  • Automated CI/CD & infrastructure
  • Team thriving, org confidence restored
  • Fast, predictable, high-quality delivery
21x
Faster Release Frequency
25+
Years Engineering Leadership
IPO
UserTesting Exit
6+
Startups Transformed
"Paul stepped in at a critical moment and took ownership of our entire R&D organization—product, design, and engineering. He brought clarity, structure, and calm to a very complex environment, and helped us move from reactive problem-solving to focused, confident execution. His leadership fundamentally changed how we built and delivered product at Spekit."
MF
Melanie Fellay Founder & CEO, Spekit

What Founders Say About Working With Paul

I've partnered with founders at every stage — from pre-seed to IPO. Here's what they have to say.

Paul was an incredible partner during a key growth phase at Guru. He helped us stabilize the product, strengthen our engineering practices, and scale the team in a way that increased throughput without sacrificing quality. His impact was felt quickly, and the improvements he drove continued to pay dividends long after.
MS
Mitch Stewart Founder & CTO, Guru
Paul led Spekit's entire R&D organization—product, design, and engineering—through a critical turnaround, transforming quality, execution, and team trust while enabling faster, more confident product delivery.
MF
Melanie Fellay Founder & CEO, Spekit
As UserTesting grew toward becoming a much larger, more complex company, Paul played a critical role in helping us evolve our technology and engineering practices to meet that challenge. He combined strong technical judgment with a deep understanding of execution and people, and his contributions helped position the company for long-term success.
DB
Darrell Benatar Founder & former CEO, UserTesting

Built for Founders Who Move Fast

No six-month ramp-up. No bloated SOWs. You get a battle-tested engineering leader embedded with your team, driving results in weeks.

1

Founder Discovery Call

We talk founder-to-founder about where your company is, what's slowing you down, and what winning looks like. I'll give you an honest take on where I can move the needle fastest.

2

Embed & Diagnose

I embed with your team and rapidly assess your engineering processes, release pipeline, team dynamics, and infrastructure. Within two weeks, you get a clear action plan tied to business outcomes.

3

Execute & Accelerate

I take ownership and drive execution — exactly what I did at UserTesting, Guru, and Spekit. You see measurable improvement in velocity, quality, and team confidence within weeks.

Your Next Growth Phase Starts With the Right Engineering Leader

Book a free 30-minute founder discovery call. Tell me what's holding your team back, and I'll tell you exactly how I'd fix it — the same way I did for the founders at UserTesting, Guru, and Spekit.

Book Your Free Discovery Call →