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.

Paul Hepworth
Paul Hepworth
Fractional CTO & VP Engineering
25+ Years
IPO Exit
10+ Startups
Trusted By Founders At
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.
  • +7 Other Startups From seed-stage to Series C across Silicon Valley — spanning SaaS, marketplace, and consumer tech. A wide breadth of experience building and scaling engineering teams in high-growth environments.
  • 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.

90+
Engineers Managed at Peak
$1B+
Combined Company Valuations
3
Successful Exits
USF & Stanford
Education

Uplevel What Matters Most — Fast

Your competitors aren't waiting. Whether it's your technology, your leaders, or your team — I find the leverage point and drive transformation that sticks.

The What

Uplevel Your Technology & Product

Fix the architecture, release pipeline, and quality issues that are slowing you down. Go from painful multi-week cycles to shipping multiple times a day with confidence.

How I deliver:
Let's Talk →
The What

Uplevel Your Leadership & Strategy

Develop engineering leaders who don't need you in the room. Sharpen decision-making, bring executive-level clarity to the roadmap, and build the strategic muscle your org is missing.

How I deliver:
Let's Talk →
The What

Uplevel Your Team & Culture

Turn a struggling team into one that ships with confidence. Install the hiring practices, velocity metrics, and engineering culture that let you scale from 5 to 50 without breaking.

How I deliver:
Let's Talk →

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
3 wks → 1 day
Release Cycle Transformation
4x
Deployment Frequency Increase
60%
Fewer Production Incidents
~90 days
Time to Measurable Impact
"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
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 →