Keaton Conrad · Founder & Principal Engineer
You're the CTO.
You're also debugging the ingestion pipeline.
On a small team, the person with the most context has the least time to use it. I take the deep work (AI features, data pipelines, the fragile service everyone routes around) so you can get back to the decisions only you can make.
Selected clients and teams I've worked with
Y Combinator, Winter 2024
Y Combinator, Summer 2018
Most people find me when something has stalled.
Usually there's one thing that matters (a product, an AI feature, a system that's become fragile) and it hasn't had anyone's full attention in months.
- Your team is underwater and something important has stalled.
- You need senior execution this month, not after a hiring cycle.
- There's an AI problem in front of you that needs real depth.
- A project needs one person who will own it end to end.
- An existing system needs stabilizing before it can grow.
- You want someone who'll question the spec, not just build it.
The work I do.
Five areas, not a menu. I'd rather do a few things well than list everything I could technically take on.
How an engagement usually goes.
No procurement theater. We work out whether this makes sense, write down the work, and start.
- 01
We talk
Thirty minutes on what you're building and where it's stuck. No deck. If I'm not the right fit I'll say so on that call.
- 02
I scope it
You get the work written down: what I'm doing, what I'm not, and what finished looks like. Usually within a few days.
- 03
I build
In your repo and your tools, shipping in increments you can see. You're never waiting on a big reveal.
- 04
I hand it over
Documentation your team will actually open, and a walkthrough so someone else can take it from here.
A note on how this works
You'll be talking to the person writing the code. Not a salesperson, then a project manager, then whoever ends up in the repo three weeks later.
That's mostly a selfish arrangement. I do better work when I've heard the problem from you directly instead of reading it secondhand in a ticket.
— Keaton Conrad
Got something difficult on your plate?
Tell me what you're working on and what's in the way. If I can help, I'll tell you how I'd approach it. If I can't, I'll say that instead of taking the meeting.