Joao Coelho
Fractional CTO
I help fintech CEOs turn engineering from a black box into a growth engine.
Fractional CTO for Series A and B companies with 20 to 100 employees. 20 years of engineering leadership in fintech. I help you ship faster, scale your team the right way, and finally understand what's happening inside engineering.
Sound familiar?
You raised a round and now you need to scale.
But you're not sure how to hire, who to hire, or how to structure a team that can actually deliver.
Engineering feels like a black box.
Work goes in, but you can't tell whether the team is on track, behind, or building the wrong thing entirely.
You're shipping too slowly and you can't figure out why.
Deadlines slip. Features take longer than expected. And the explanations from the technical side don't make it any clearer.
How I Help
Team Scaling and Structure. I help you figure out who to hire, when to hire, and how to organize your engineering team so it can grow without breaking. I've led teams and built the processes that let them operate without constant oversight.
Engineering Visibility. I build the dashboards, reporting, and communication rhythms that let you see what's happening in engineering without needing a CS degree. I've built BI platforms that turned raw cloud data into executive dashboards, so leadership could finally make decisions based on real metrics instead of gut feel.
Shipping Velocity. I dig into what's actually slowing you down. Sometimes it's process. Sometimes it's tooling. Sometimes it's how the team is organized. I've built automation frameworks that took testing cycles from days to hours, created CI/CD pipelines that removed manual deployment bottlenecks, and developed internal tools that made non-technical team members self-sufficient.
Stabilization. After a raise, everything is moving fast and things tend to break. I help stabilize your workflows, your team dynamics, and your technical foundation so you can grow on solid ground.
20 Years of Building What Works
I've spent two decades in software engineering, mostly in fintech. I've worked across the full stack of problems that growing companies face: from building production tooling used on manufacturing floors to architecting data platforms on AWS to setting up the CI/CD infrastructure that lets teams ship with confidence.
One example: a company needed non-technical staff to deploy and configure EV chargers in the field. I built the application that made that possible. It became the standard production tool. That's the kind of problem I solve: taking something complex and technical and making it work for the people who need to use it.
I've built automation frameworks that cut QA cycles by 80%. I've created internal tooling that let engineers focus on product work instead of repetitive tasks. I've set up load testing infrastructure and data analysis pipelines that gave teams real answers about system performance instead of guesses.
I don't just write code. I build the systems, tools, and structures that make engineering teams productive, visible, and scalable.
Getting Started Is Simple
We talk for 15 minutes.
You tell me what's going on. I ask questions. We figure out if there's a fit.
I dig into the situation.
If we move forward, I assess your team, your workflows, and your technical setup. No month-long discovery phase. I get to work.
You get a CTO who delivers.
Ongoing fractional engagement tailored to what your company actually needs. I integrate with your team, not as a consultant passing through, but as a technical leader who's invested in outcomes.
Let's Talk
If any of what you read sounds like your situation, let's have a conversation. 15 minutes. No pitch. Just a straightforward discussion about what's going on with your engineering team and whether I can help.