Gary Worthington

I am a hands-on CTO, founder and engineering leader with 20+ years’ experience building software products, engineering teams and delivery systems across startups, scale-ups and enterprise organisations.I help companies bring senior technical judgement into commercially important work. That might mean stepping in as a fractional CTO, leading a platform rebuild, improving delivery predictability, mentoring an engineering team, supporting technical due diligence, or taking ownership of architecture and delivery where the stakes are high.My background combines board-level technical strategy with hands-on engineering. I have taken products from idea to revenue, investment and acquisition; scaled platforms through major demand spikes; led engineering teams through change; and delivered secure cloud services in regulated environments.I am most useful when a business needs someone who can move comfortably between product, engineering and commercial conversations. I can help define the technical direction, challenge assumptions, make pragmatic architecture decisions, improve engineering standards, and still get into the code when that is the fastest way to move things forward.Technically, I work mainly across Python, Django, FastAPI, AWS, Terraform, CI/CD, observability, APIs, distributed systems and platform architecture. I also bring experience in engineering management, agile delivery, product discovery, startup execution and technical leadership.The kind of problems I help with include:• Fractional CTO leadership• Principal engineer / hands-on technical leadership• SaaS and platform architecture• AWS, Python and Terraform delivery• Engineering team leadership and mentoring• Delivery recovery when teams are stuck or drifting• Test strategy, observability and production readiness• Technical due diligence and investor/customer confidence• Turning ambiguous product and technical problems into clear, executable plansI work best with founders, CTOs, product leaders and engineering teams who need calm senior leadership, clear priorities, pragmatic architecture and someone who can bridge the gap between strategy, delivery and code.