Vetted Chief Technology Officers in California

“Engineering leader/player-coach who built and validated a preference-based recommendation engine using clustering, including generating test data to evaluate how clusters evolve over time. Has SRE/DevOps experience and has owned production incidents end-to-end (logging-driven RCA and refactoring patterns that failed at large data scale). Emphasizes quality and platform stability via unit, integration, and load testing, and has managed performance via regular 1:1s and PIPs.”

“Engineering leader who drove Lightroom Mobile’s roadmap at Adobe by enforcing reuse of Photoshop imaging tech to deliver RAW, non-destructive mobile editing with full Creative Cloud compatibility. In startup environments, has repeatedly scaled and professionalized engineering orgs (career ladders, evaluation systems, delivery process) and led high-stakes cloud/platform transformations—migrating off Heroku and consolidating fragmented AWS/GCP usage into a single GCP platform—improving reliability, deploy speed, and cutting cloud costs by 20%+.”

SHIVA SANDY

Screened

Executive CTO/CIO specializing in FinTech, cloud transformation, and cybersecurity

Walnut Creek, CA27y exp

“Banking/credit-union technology executive (CTO/CTIO) who has led modernization and product delivery through major change, including a post-merger roadmap that helped grow a credit union from $600M to $1.5B in 3 years. Hands-on leader who drove cloud microservices/API architecture, introduced CI/CD, and accelerated releases from quarterly to weekly while scaling teams and operating effectively with distributed/remote orgs.”

“Chief AI Strategy at startup Zenera with 30 years in technology strategy/design, experienced in building business plans across startups and large enterprises (projects, new products, and M&A). Deeply familiar with enterprise AI go-to-market challenges (slow procurement/pilot cycles) and preparing for VC expectations (e.g., targeting a16z) by emphasizing unique tech and paying customers.”

“Co-founded Aethernet Inc., a B2B IoT connectivity platform with a usage-based revenue model and direct sales motion to device manufacturers. Bootstrapped with founder capital and strict cost control, with angel interest pending technical validation; developed the product through multi-year architecture experiments to deliver measurable latency/reliability/scalability/cost advantages versus DevOps-heavy incumbents like AWS IoT Core.”

Jim Woodroffe

Screened

Executive Engineering Leader (CTO/VP) specializing in scaling platforms, AI, and cloud infrastructure

San Francisco, CA24y exp

“Entrepreneurial operator who previously built an AI context layer for personal communication/relationships and has worked with a New York-based venture group to evaluate early-stage ideas from both technical and business angles. Currently exploring broad startup opportunities and collaborating with 2–3 early-stage companies, with a structured approach to assessing market outcomes, competition, and team fit.”

“Engineering/tech leader with experience spanning major platforms (mentions Microsoft and AWS) and leading ML-driven product architecture (ranking systems). Describes driving a shift to a layered, API-standardized service architecture (including vector database components) that materially increased delivery speed (weeks to hours) while improving scalability and security, and emphasizes rigorous execution reviews (QDR/OKRs) plus transparent remote-team operating rhythms.”

“Founder building an enterprise agentic AI startup who has already raised about $100K (friends & family plus self-funding). Has prior and current experience engaging VCs (including outreach to both large and small firms) and emphasizes demo-driven pitching, enterprise customer validation, and targeting billion-dollar market opportunities.”

Anand Vallamsetla

Screened

Executive Engineering Leader & Systems Architect specializing in AI, cloud platforms, and FinTech

Los Altos, CA26y exp

“Operator with 20+ years experience and a business degree who led the build and deployment of a Medicaid fraud investigation product for Texas HHSC OIG, cutting investigation time from ~2 years to 90 days. Has government go-to-market experience and has raised a friends-and-family round for an earlier startup concept; now pivoting toward a healthcare-focused venture after a cofounder with core tech could not continue.”

Sammy Datwani

Screened

Executive biotech leader specializing in microfluidics, diagnostics, and life science tools

Pleasanton, CA25y exp

“Biotech founder building a de-novo protein sequencing company, originally incubated by Versant Ventures and now focused on life science tools and clinical diagnostics. Has raised capital from institutional VCs, strategic investors, and a foundation, and brings unusual ecosystem depth through mentoring at IndieBio, Berkeley SkyDeck, and Biotools Innovator, plus board service with Life Science Angels and VC diligence advisory work.”

Pankaj Goyal

Screened

Director-level Engineering Leader specializing in FinTech, IAM, and AI/ML platforms

SF Bay Area, CA22y exp

“Player-coach backend leader at PostLo who led a major backend architecture upgrade to enable AI-driven features by separating transactional systems from AI workloads (vector embeddings/image validation) and adding async processing for heavy jobs. Also owned production reliability improvements (query/index optimization, workload isolation, monitoring and load testing) and translated an ambiguous retention goal into a shipped cashback rewards feature with auditable transactions.”

Paul Kasinski

Screened ReferencesStrong rec.

Executive CIO/CTO specializing in enterprise transformation across retail, e-commerce, and AI

Santa Monica, CA17y exp

“Senior technology executive (CTO/SVP Technology, also board member) with experience modernizing legacy environments and scaling teams in high-growth and PE-owned contexts. Architected a standardized enterprise platform (ERP/WMS/CRM/POS/eComm/DWH/BI/integration) to rapidly migrate acquisitions—moving 7 companies in under 3 years and cutting migration timelines ~4x—while also driving major org redesign and hiring acceleration (30+ hires in 6 months).”