Michael Card · fractional CTO · UK
I run technology for companies that don't have a CTO, or shouldn't need a full-time one. Pick the sentence that sounds like your last month and I'll show you the engagement that looked like it.
Enterprise Architect · 2025–present
Designing orchestration capabilities for complex multi-party workflows, automating documentation across a large microservice estate, and building AI-powered codebase intelligence. Delivered enterprise-scale architecture while mentoring teams and establishing standards.
The engagement : Novus StrategySolutions Architect · 2025–2026
Conducted independent technical due diligence for Medecins Sans Frontieres, analysing their existing codebase, challenging a development agency's modernisation proposal, and delivering executive reports that enabled leadership to make informed vendor decisions.
The engagement : Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)Chief Technology Officer · 2022–2024
Fractional CTO for a US wellness marketplace startup, architecting a 45+ microservice platform, managing teams of up to 20 developers across three agency engagements, and learning critical lessons about authority, title, and technical leadership in volatile business environments.
The engagement : Spa Space IncMost of these engagements involved building or rescuing something, not advising on it. If I recommend it, I am there when it ships.
A shared library instead of a service. A strangler migration instead of a rewrite. Most of these engagements turned on refusing the first plan.
Fifteen WinForms developers became full-stack engineers. A predominantly junior team learned to push back on AI output. That is the deliverable that stays.
10s → 300ms
Eight authorisation systems unified into one service for a UK property platform.
Read it : Unifying 8 fragmented authorisation systems into one secure service60%
Of an agency's modernisation quote to a humanitarian NGO was its own technical debt.
Read it : Independent technical due diligence that saved 60% of proposed budget$10M
Acquisition capital attracted on a strategy and architecture I owned for two years.
Read it : Building a 45+ microservice platform that survived acquisition and 3 agency failuresNo slides, no discovery deck. Ten minutes of what's actually happening and who's frustrated.
Including when it isn't a technology problem, and when you don't need me.
A one-page note the next morning: what I'd do first, what it costs, what happens if you do nothing.
“Working with Michael was an absolute pleasure. He was the border between the developers and the business and always managed to handle both sides' expectations and took the stress of the business on to himself to give the developers enough room to do amazing work. A great developer as well. Always a laugh, great personality, light hearted and I would definitely work with him again at a moment's notice.”
Or email hello@softweb.uk. I answer these myself.
