01 · Service
Fractional CTO
For founders who need a senior technical partner, not just hands.
- 01Technical strategy & roadmap
- 02Hiring and team building
- 03Architecture reviews
- 04Investor due-diligence support
№ 001 · The Practice of Alec MaliwanagVol. X · Spring MMXXVI
I help foundersand teams shipthe hard thing,and the next one.
“He shipped more in his first three weeks than our previous contractor did in three months.”
Fractional CTO and senior engineer with a decade in React. I build the team, write the code, and stay long enough to make it stick. I work with one or two companies at a time.
Currently
Taking one new fractional client for Q3 2026.
Trusted by ↗Kindling HealthLoop LogisticsAtlas BriefingNorthwind StudioFerndale RoboticsCalderaField Notes Co.
i.
ServicesThree ways we can work together.
Every engagement begins the same way: a free 30-minute call, a written proposal, and a small first milestone. No retainers without a trial run.
02 · Service
Senior engineering
When you need someone who can ship the hard thing, end-to-end.
- 01Greenfield product builds
- 02Performance & DX rescues
- 03React migrations & rewrites
- 04AI-product engineering
03 · Service
Advisory
Lightweight engagements for teams that mostly know what they’re doing.
- 01Monthly architecture office hours
- 02Hiring loop calibration
- 03Tech-lead coaching
- 041:1 founder support
ii.
Selected WorkFive projects, told honestly.
A representative slice of the last three years. Real outcomes, real constraints, written without the marketing varnish.
№ 01
Kindling Health
Fractional CTO · 9 months“Took a healthtech startup from 0 to HIPAA-ready in two quarters.”
Built the founding engineering org, set up infra and compliance, and shipped the v1 patient portal. Hired and onboarded the first three engineers.
- Next.js
- tRPC
- Postgres
- AWS
- Terraform
Outcome0 → 12k weekly actives
№ 02
Loop Logistics
Senior engineer · 4 months“Rebuilt their dispatch console and cut load times by 8×.”
Rewrote a legacy Backbone app in React. Introduced a real-time event bus, optimistic UI, and a design system the team still uses.
- React
- TypeScript
- WebSockets
- Redis
Outcome4.2s → 480ms TTI
№ 03
Atlas Briefing
Fractional CTO · ongoing“Designed and shipped an AI research workspace from sketch to GA.”
Architected a streaming RAG pipeline, built the evaluator harness, and ran the team of four. Series A closed three months after launch.
- React
- Anthropic
- pgvector
- Modal
OutcomeSeries A in 90 days
№ 04
Northwind Studio
Senior engineer · 6 weeks“A type-safe CMS for a 40-person agency, in a sprint.”
Replaced a tangle of Airtable bases and Notion pages with a custom admin built on Payload. Trained the team to extend it themselves.
- Payload CMS
- React
- Postgres
Outcome6 tools → 1
№ 05
Ferndale Robotics
Advisor · 3 months“Helped a hardware team think like a software org.”
Restructured their release process, set up CI for firmware, and coached two senior engineers into tech-lead roles.
- CI/CD
- Python
- Org design
Outcome6-week → 2-day release cycle
iii.
Kind WordsFrom the people who wrote the checks.
Alec is the rare engineer who can write the production code AND tell you which production code shouldn't exist. He saved us from at least three architectural mistakes I would have happily made.
Priya Shah
Founder & CEO, Atlas BriefingWe needed a CTO for six months and a friend for a year. Alec gave us both. He hired our first engineers, set the bar for the team, and left us in much better shape than he found us.
Marcus Okafor
Co-founder, Kindling HealthHe shipped more in his first three weeks than our previous contractor did in three months. And he documented everything. I cannot stress enough how rare that is.
Hannah Liu
VP Engineering, Loop LogisticsCalm, direct, no theatrics. Alec told me when I was wrong, told me when I was right, and never wasted my time. I'd hire him again tomorrow.
David Reyes
Founder, Northwind Studioiv. · AboutA decade of React,
A decade of React,
and a few warm opinions.
I started writing React in 2016, when it still came with a learning curve and a chip on its shoulder. Since then I've worked at two startups, led an engineering team of nine, and shipped enough product to know which problems are real and which are imagined.
The fractional CTO work began as a favor to a friend in 2024. Three companies later, I made it the practice. I take on one or two clients at a time so I can stay close to the code and the team.
When I'm not at a keyboard I'm cooking something slow, walking the same Brooklyn loop, or arguing about the right number of microservices (the answer, almost always, is one).
- 10y
- In React
- 25+
- Shipped
- 3
- Orgs led
- 1.2M
- WAU reached
v.
The ToolkitTools I actually reach for.
Frontend
- React
- TypeScript
- Next.js
- Remix
- Tailwind
- Framer Motion
Backend
- Node
- Postgres
- tRPC
- Drizzle
- Redis
- Python
Infra
- Vercel
- AWS
- Terraform
- Docker
- Modal
AI
- Anthropic
- pgvector
- Eval harnesses
- Streaming RAG
vi.
WritingField notes from the practice.
vii. · NowWhat I'm up to,
What I'm up to,
this season.
Updated April 24, 2026
- 01Fractional CTO at Atlas Briefing (12 hrs/wk, ongoing).
- 02Taking on one new fractional client for Q3.
- 03Writing a short book on the first 90 days of any engineering org.
- 04Reading: A Philosophy of Software Design (re-read).
- 05Based in Brooklyn. Open to remote and NYC on-site.
viii. · Get in touchLet's build
Let's build
something.
Free 30-minute intro call. No agenda — we'll figure out together if there's a fit.
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