A humble software and consulting business based in Cologne, Germany.
For the time being, I, Felix Dahlke, am the main product; sharing my experience and skills through consulting services.
Consulting
As a seasoned Chief Technology Officer, I mainly help my clients with what I know best - either as a fractional (i.e. part-time) CTO, or as a coach for existing leadership. See services for more engagement options.
Drop me a line if interested - I offer a free consultation.
Experience
Since I took my first job as a programmer in 2005, I've been building software professionally. In 2012, I took on my first real leadership position, which culminated in me becoming CTO and managing director in 2015. After growing the company from seven to more than 230 employees and 55 MM EUR annual revenue, I joined another startup as CTO in 2020, which I ran and grew for two years. Unfortunately, we were unable to secure funding in the economic situation of 2022 and had to shut down. In January 2023, I started my own business - this one.
Given my experience in CTO roles, technical leadership is probably my main selling point. Remote organisations and teams, full or hybrid, are where I'm most experienced, having run such places since 2012. I've built and launched new products, scaled up existing products to hundreds of millions of users, developed successful company strategies, created teams and scaled them up into entire business units or separate businesses, managed acquisitions, hired hundreds of software developers, product professionals and managers, trained entry-level and junior developers, coached dozens of people in leadership roles, managed reorganisations, change processes and lay-offs.
Technologically, I've always been a generalist, happy to work with pretty much any code base or tech stack, legacy or modern, from web and mobile to systems programming and infrastructure. I've done significant work in JavaScript and TypeScript (from vanilla web tech to React et al.), C and C++, Java, Kotlin, Clojure, Python, Ruby, Common Lisp, Clojure, C#, Swift and Rust. In my spare time, I mostly enjoy dabbling in game development and robotics. Even in leadership positions, I tend to work directly with development teams to kick off new products, get problems under control, automate what is economical to automate, and to generally ensure good practices and quality in the technical organisation.
When asked if I focus on leadership or technology, my answer is usually that I refuse to choose just one. I enjoy both, and good leadership can come from deeply understanding both the work and the workers.
Services
I can support you in a wide variety of ways, depending on your needs and preferences. Here are some of the typical services I provide for my clients:
Individual coaching
I'll support one or more people in your organisation with regular coaching sessions; helping them perform well in their current role, or grow into a new one. For some clients these sessions are weekly 1:1s where we discuss high-level technical and people-related topics. For other clients it's a full day of pairing on some tricky code once a month. I'm flexible about providing the support the people I'm working with need, typically for 1 or 2 hours per week.
Fractional or interim tech lead
For a few months, I take on a leadership role in your organisation - typically part-time. I will immediately fill the vacuum, and then help you find and train a permanent replacement. I'm happy to do this on any level, from running a small team to (pending availability) full time interim CTO. My fractional CTO engagements are usually between 4 and 8 hours per week.
Right-hand as a service
A mixture between a fractional CTO and a coaching engagement: I act as the right-hand person for someone holding a leadership role in your organisation: I'll stabilise the situation by taking work off their desk immediately, and work with them to ensure they can fill their role well and spend their energy where it has the most impact going forward.
Building software
If you're lacking a technical co-founder, or want to experiment with an idea without hiring additional full time employees, I'm happy to help you define your prototype or MVP, and build it personally. Once you want to scale it up, I can also help you hire and manage full time staff for it.
Overseeing outsourcing companies
If you're working with an outsourcing company, I can keep them honest for you: Verifying their output and skill matches your agreements, and ensuring they understand and work towards your goals and requirements.
Technology and organisation assessment
If you want to understand where you stand with your software, team, and processes, I'm happy to take a deep dive and do some due diligence. I will then share my assessment of the situation, suggest what to improve and what to maintain, help set your strategy, goals and roadmap, and answer any questions you may have.
Free consultation
I offer one free consultation to every potential new client. So if you want some quick advice without any costs or paperwork involved: Write to me, and I'm happy to jump on a call or exchange a few emails at no charge.