Mike Nash
Fractional CTO.Independent code and architecture reviews.Technical due diligence.
Founders, directors and investors hire me to read the code and tell them whether it's safe to build on. You get a written report with a clear answer: continue, fix first, or rebuild. Fixed fee.
Built with AI tools? See the AI code audit →
-630% → +36%
TURNAROUND
Support-agreement profitability in 6 months
Dexus · NTT · Kalibrate · Lancom
ENGAGEMENTS
Plus NDA'd startups and government
Twelve years
ENGINEERING DEPTH
Full-stack to CTO
I'm Mike Nash - a technical leader with twelve years in production systems. I take on fractional CTO work, and I go into codebases - AI-assisted builds, inherited vendor work, live systems with unexplained failures - find what's wrong, and tell you exactly what to do about it.
What I do
Fractional CTO
Senior technical leadership without the full-time hire. I work with your team to set technical direction, make architecture decisions, hire and grow engineers, and build the systems that let you scale. A CTO who still writes the code and understands what your team is actually dealing with.
Led an early-stage SaaS startup from zero to pre-seed - architecture, stack decisions, MVP build, engineering culture - as sole technical leader. Also rescued a stalled .NET migration at Lancom Technology - six months overdue, back to billable within three months.
Code and architecture review
Before you ship it, fund it, or take it over from the people who built it, an independent senior review of the code and architecture. I read it, run it and its tests, and tell you in writing what is solid, what is fragile and what to fix first: continue, fix first, or rebuild. Fixed fee, agreed before you commit. Includes software built with AI tools.
I've delivered architecture reviews, technical audits and code audits as a commercial service, including assessments of third-party-built platforms, reviews before investment or acquisition, and legacy modernisation, plus data integrity investigations for agriculture SaaS platforms.
Technical Due Diligence
Before you write the cheque. Architecture, code quality, security posture, technical debt, team capability, infrastructure - everything an investor or acquirer needs to know before committing. Written for both technical readers and the people making the investment decision.
Led the decommissioning of a legacy registry platform at Dexus (ASX Top 50, A$50bn+ in assets) and its migration to a third-party system, with GS007 compliance. Hundreds of thousands of records migrated.
System Diagnostic & Remediation
Something's wrong and nobody can pin it down. Data going missing. Events misfiring. Performance degrading in ways nobody can explain. I come in, go through the logs, trace the failure patterns, and find it. Some issues I fix directly; others I document precisely for your team. Either way, you stop guessing.
Diagnosed and resolved a critical data integrity crisis for an agriculture SaaS platform - DynamoDB inconsistencies, cross-application conflicts, lost records. Investigated via logs, implemented optimistic locking, fixed GraphQL mutations, built Python reconciliation scripts.
Businesses call me for the leadership they don't have yet, or a technical problem nobody can agree on how to fix.
You need senior technical leadership but aren't ready for a full-time hire
You're a founder or exec who needs someone to tell them the truth, not manage them
You've received a build from an external team and need to know if it's solid before it goes live
Something's broken and nobody can agree where it started or what's actually causing it
You've just inherited a codebase and need a clear picture before you make any real decisions
You're about to raise investment and need an independent technical assessment
Mike brings a level of architectural clarity and engineering discipline that instantly de-risks complex technical builds.
Mike led a squad of four through a complex inherited microservice architecture and made it look straightforward. He picks up new technologies fast, builds relationships across teams and customers without effort, and delivers with real professionalism.
Taking on new engagements now.
30 minutes. No pitch deck. Just an honest conversation about where you are and whether I can help.