Fractional & AI-native CTO
for E-commerce.
From platform scale to margin-finding AI agents across fulfillment, I build e-commerce technology that holds up on the busiest day of the year and finds profit in every order.
A CTO who plans for the busiest day.
A fractional CTO for e-commerce is an experienced Chief Technology Officer who leads an online retail company part-time: the platform architecture, the engineering team, and the systems that decide whether each order makes money. In commerce the judgment is specific. Peak-load scale, re-platforming risk, and thin margins that punish every inefficiency.
I've built for the spike and migrated live stores with downtime measured in minutes. When a re-platform or a troubled org needs someone in the seat every day, the same work runs as an interim engagement, see turnaround CTO. My pricing is published in the fractional CTO cost guide.
Also known as: online retail CTO, D2C CTO, direct-to-consumer commerce CTO, part-time e-commerce CTO.
The busiest day finds every weakness.
And thin margins punish every inefficiency the rest of the year.
Peak-load scale
Black Friday doesn't care about your architecture diagram. The platform has to absorb the spike without falling over or over-provisioning all year.
Legacy re-platforming
Migrating a legacy store is high-stakes, every hour of downtime is revenue. It has to be done with minimal disruption, not a big-bang gamble.
Margin compression
In a commodity market the price is fixed, so profit hides in the cost of each order: sourcing, shipping, returns. Finding it is an engineering problem.
Fulfillment complexity
Sourcing, routing, returns and exceptions multiply fast. This is exactly where well-designed AI agents earn their keep.
Scale that holds, margin that shows.
Scale & re-platform
Architecture that absorbs peak load economically, and re-platforming legacy commerce with downtime measured in minutes, I've run zero-downtime migrations.
Margin-finding AI agents
A graph of AI agents that finds profit in the cost of each order, sourcing, shipping and returns, while holding a margin floor.
Fulfillment automation
Automate the routing, exceptions and returns that quietly eat operations time, with the right guardrails and observability.
What e-commerce operators ask.
Can your systems handle peak traffic?
Yes. Peak events like Black Friday expose every architectural weakness, so the platform has to absorb the spike without falling over, and without over-provisioning the rest of the year. I've built and re-platformed systems specifically to hold up on the busiest day while staying economical on the quiet ones.
How can AI improve e-commerce margins?
In a commodity market where price is fixed, margin hides in the cost of each order. A graph of AI agents can find profit across sourcing, shipping and returns while holding a margin floor, turning a thin-margin operation into a measurably better one. I've designed exactly these fulfillment agent systems.
Can you re-platform our legacy store with minimal downtime?
Yes. Re-platforming is high-stakes because every hour down is revenue. I've led sub-one-hour and zero-downtime migrations of production systems, sequencing the move so customers barely notice rather than betting the business on a big-bang cutover.
What does a fractional CTO for e-commerce cost?
The same published pricing as the rest of my work, in USD: advisory at $10,000 a month (about a day a week), the full fractional engagement at $18,000 a month (about two days), and embedded or interim leadership at $30,000 a month. A fixed-fee Diagnostic starts at $20,000. The full breakdown is in my fractional CTO cost guide.
Do you work with D2C and online retail brands?
Yes. Direct-to-consumer and online retail share the same engineering economics: fixed prices, thin margins, and profit hiding in the cost of each order. My multi-brand commerce work, one multi-tenant engine serving a portfolio of storefronts, comes straight from that world.
Can you take over during a turnaround or a migration?
Yes. When a re-platform or a troubled engineering org needs someone in the seat every day, I work as an interim or turnaround CTO: full-time but temporary, stabilizing delivery, de-risking the migration, then handing back a stronger function.
Scaling an e-commerce platform?
Whether the problem is peak-day scale, a risky re-platform, or thin margins, I've solved each before.