Your software works in the demo. I get it live.

AI-generated

You own a software product, but nobody in-house owns the engineering behind it. I take that role: fractional CTO, inside the team, from the decision to the shipped release. For prototypes that need to become real production software. For projects stuck after an agency or freelancers. For releases that finally hold.

Request a 30-minute intro See ways to work together
  • 20+ years software delivery
  • Interim CTO
  • Ex-Head of Engineering
  • M.Sc. IT-Systems Engineering

When companies call me.

Your first paying customer is coming, and the prototype won't carry them

The idea works in a demo. Reliability, security, architecture and the last product details are missing. What you can show, you can't ship yet.

The agency is out, and nobody understands the code

Handovers between vendors, opaque code, unclear ownership, growing technical debt. Every release gets slower and riskier.

The CTO left, and decisions are piling up

Your developers are capable and motivated. But product priorities, technical decisions and business outcomes have drifted apart, and nobody is pulling them back together.

The AI feature convinced the board, now it has to run

The demo effect has worn off. Cost per request, hallucinations, data protection, operations: unsolved. What worked in the presentation doesn't survive a real user.

Selected results.

Hanseatic Bank

First-mover on Apple Pay, built to run in-house

Starting point
Through its Digital Hub, a startup within the company, Hanseatic Bank set out to build a mobile app for its credit card product and become an early mover on Apple Pay and Google Pay. It started lean with external developers, but from the outset the app was meant to move to an internal in-house team later on.
My contribution
I designed and built the React Native app, delivered the Apple Pay integration, and helped hire and mentor the bank's own mobile team. I advised on hiring, architecture, and product decisions and set up the development practices and CI/CD pipelines to build and run the app.
Result
One of the first banks to offer Apple Pay, it won new customers who could pay without opening a separate account. Today the bank develops the app in-house, and it has passed 500,000 downloads on the Play Store.
Hamburg Startups

A multi-tenant platform that widened reach, and a pragmatic pivot

Starting point
A data platform in the startup ecosystem had grown organically into a tangle of home-grown features that were hard to maintain. It was expensive to run, leaned on outside specialists, and had been built into a full product before anyone tested its product-market fit.
My contribution
As Interim CTO, I took technical ownership, rebuilt the platform to be multi-tenant across regions, improved data collection, and cut the dependency on freelancers.
Result
One codebase powered several regional and themed platforms, including a dedicated variant for female founders. When profits stayed below expectations even after that expansion, we pivoted with the client to a leaner suite of tools, now run by an internal team.
LifeBonus

From scattered pieces to a product that trained its own AI

Starting point
LifeBonus set out to digitize an analog business: health trainers who visited care facilities to teach caregivers correct movements, now delivered through an app that read movement patterns with AI. A prototype, an on-site AI team, and a cloud-first backend existed, but the pieces did not yet fit together.
My contribution
I designed and built the video upload end to end and wired the video processing pipeline into the existing cloud-native backend. I reworked onboarding and advised management on positioning and monetization.
Result
The app turned user videos into reliable training data for the AI team's movement-recognition model and gave new users a simpler onboarding flow. That foundation, together with my advice on positioning, let the company test new sales models, from professional care facilities to private caregivers looking after family members at home.
See full work history

Working together, without detours.

  1. 30-minute call

    We talk

    We establish what exists, what is blocked and which of the three engagements fits, if any.

  2. Diagnosis first

    I look at what is actually there

    I assess the product, code, architecture, team and constraints through a CTO lens: can it ship, scale and support the business? As a standalone CTO Assessment or as the start of a sprint or retainer.

  3. Weeks, not quarters

    We make decisions and ship

    I turn the findings into priorities, take ownership of the hard technical decisions and stay involved through delivery.

Three ways to work together.

Start here

1 · Diagnosis

CTO Assessment

An experienced CTO's assessment of whether your product can ship and scale, and whether your technology, team and delivery setup can support the business.

Within five business days

Fixed price: €4,800 plus VAT

  • A written CTO assessment for your board, investors, or vendor
  • A clear call: ship, repair, rebuild, replace, or reduce
  • A prioritized action plan based on business risk
Discuss the assessment

2 · Delivery

Release Sprint

Focused senior execution for a promising product or an urgent release.

In two-week sprints

Fixed price per sprint, agreed before we start, based on the CTO Assessment or a scoping call.

  • A release you can ship to paying customers
  • An architecture your team can build on without me
  • A clean handover, so the momentum stays when I leave
Discuss a Release Sprint

3 · Leadership

Fractional CTO

Technical leadership from inside the team, hands-on in delivery when needed.

2 or 4 days per week

Flat monthly retainer, sized by scope and stage. Cancel anytime, no notice period.

  • Technical decisions that hold up under scale, due diligence, and hiring
  • A team that ships predictably instead of firefighting
  • One person who owns the technical course
Discuss an engagement

How pricing works

Fixed price or flat monthly retainer. Agreed before we start. You're buying results, not hours. Full budget certainty from day one. The yardstick isn't a day rate, it's what the decision behind the work is worth: architecture that carries. A release that holds. CTO-level judgment without a full-time CTO.

Profile

Senior enough to make the call. Hands-on enough to carry it through.

Norman Holz (AI-generated)

I have spent more than 20 years building software and leading engineering work across startups, banking, healthcare, agencies and enterprise environments. My background combines systems engineering, product delivery, team leadership, psychology and applied AI.

  • Experienced Interim CTO and Engineering Manager for mobile and web front-end teams
  • Certified AI Engineering Expert
  • M.Sc. IT-Systems Engineering and B.Sc. Psychology
  • Hands-on architecture and implementation
View full profile

Who I work best with.

Typically: funded startups after the first round, digital units inside established companies, and mid-sized firms whose business has become software.

Good fit

  • You own a software product, but experienced technical leadership is missing
  • Your project has stalled after an agency, a freelancer or an internal team
  • Your prototype needs to become secure, maintainable production software
  • Technical and product decisions are getting expensive
  • You need experienced technical judgement, but not a permanent executive
  • You can make technical decisions yourselves, without a committee or a long approval chain

Probably not a fit

  • You only need extra implementation capacity
  • The project has no internal decision-maker
  • You want a long strategy document without execution
  • The cheapest available developer is the main selection criterion
  • Procurement evaluates on day rate, not on outcome
  • The product has neither revenue nor funding

Technical judgment, written down.

Practical essays on what to build, what to buy, and what tends to break later.

Read all articles

AI Assistant

Open questions? nIA has answers.

nIA, a female AI personality, in a dark technology workspace. AI-generated

nIA is my personal AI assistant. It knows my experience, products, services, and articles and can answer anything covered in this profile.

For advice about your project, speak to me directly. Do not submit confidential or sensitive information to the assistant.

Your move.

I reply within one business day with times to talk.

You do not need a polished brief. Tell me what already exists, where progress has stalled, and what outcome you need. I will reply personally and let you know whether an intro call would be useful.

I usually reply within one business day. No mailing list. No automated sales emails.