Vetted Director of Engineerings

Vijay Mohan

Screened ReferencesStrong rec.

Executive technology leader specializing in AI, cloud platforms, and enterprise software

Nashua, NH25y exp

“Founder of Braindump (redfly.ai), an AI companion for memory and personal organization, who has already raised $60,000 from Alchemist Accelerator. Brings hands-on experience with customer discovery, technical validation, and VC pitching, and stands out for a first-principles approach to building products with dramatic performance and cost improvements.”

Luis Mirantes

Screened

Executive engineering leader specializing in scaling ML platforms and FinTech systems

Chevy Chase, MD30y exp

“Founder of an AI-agent startup focused on high-speed train braking efficiency, with a subsystem already demoed to RENFE Spain and positive initial feedback. Has hands-on fundraising and investor presentation experience, and stands out for a highly analytical approach to venture building centered on ROI, competitive barriers, IP protection, and evidence-based decision making.”

Jones Pavan

Screened

Director-level Engineering Leader specializing in platform modernization and AI integration

Burbank, CA15y exp

“Engineering leader from Blackline who has repeatedly rescued and delivered high-visibility products by resetting roadmaps, tightening execution (better specs/estimation), and accelerating team velocity. Scaled a distributed org from ~20 to ~40 engineers by building a new India team with strong hiring rubrics and governance-as-code/SDLC consistency. Also modernized legacy systems into microservices (Kafka/Kubernetes/Apigee) and drove hackathon-to-production innovation using Google Vertex AI.”

Joseph Ferrairo

Screened

Director-level Engineering Leader specializing in full-stack Ruby on Rails and platform modernization

New York, NY10y exp

“Software engineer who worked at The Tylt (part of Advance Alpha Group incubator), building a CMS and API. Interested in returning to fast-paced incubator/startup environments and emphasizes rapid user validation and improving user experience.”

Sakid Ahmed

Screened

Executive Telecom & Wireless Connectivity Leader (GM/VP Engineering)

Chicago, IL29y exp

“Operator with experience in a private equity-backed business that was carved out of a larger company and later taken public. Brings a startup-builder mindset from within larger-company environments, with emphasis on P&L ownership, go-to-market strategy, product strategy, and evaluating ideas through product-market fit and scalable market demand.”

Devang Shah

Screened

Executive AI and Cloud transformation leader specializing in enterprise GTM and product engineering

San Jose, CA23y exp

“Candidate is interested in building horizontal AI infrastructure capabilities, specifically around observability, and brings exposure to investor evaluation dynamics from experience at PE-backed firm WinWire. They appear strongly motivated by entrepreneurial ownership, creativity, and the ability to drive and pivot ideas in a venture studio or startup environment.”

“CTO candidate with experience in multiple VC-backed startups, emphasizing timing and disciplined scaling of engineering orgs (people, product, process). Evaluates technology choices through a customer-value lens and proactively flags business/tech misalignment, with a pragmatic approach to venture viability using TAM, competitive landscape, and leading indicators.”

“Previously founded and successfully exited a self-funded startup in the marine electronics and vessel monitoring/control space. Brings unusually broad end-to-end technical depth—from transistor-level design and firmware to Internet-connected systems and software—paired with a pragmatic founder mindset around market needs, differentiation, reliability, and product strategy.”

“Serial venture builder/operator across ad tech, media delivery, search engines, international content management, and ecommerce; has raised up to $150M and been involved in 8 acquisitions or IP-acquisition events. Known for refactoring/re-engineering smaller or troubled platforms into higher-value businesses, including building yield-management algorithms and a Kafka-like system to improve ad delivery profitability.”

Jeff Cushler

Screened

Executive Technology & Product Leader specializing in Healthcare IT, SaaS, and Cloud Transformation

Austin, TX30y exp

“Startup product/enterprise-stack builder who helped take Ventric Health from R&D to a market-launched healthcare product in 2024, operating in a $34M-raised, revenue-generating model leveraging Medicare C reimbursement through providers. Previously drove adoption of an integrated K-12 digital learning platform distributed to 100+ institutions over two years, with reported improvements in test scores.”

“Hands-on engineering leader who has scaled teams quickly (hired 20 engineers in 4 months) and led major architecture shifts including monolith-to-microservices and serverless, async AI-driven medical data ingestion/search. Also drove a versioned-inventory redesign with auditability and rollback that reduced operational errors by 22%, and demonstrates strong incident response with clear stakeholder communication.”

“Operations and manufacturing leader with experience acting as an internal CEO to build a new business inside IDEX Corp from a $15M budget, owning P&L and a 3-year plan through product launch. At Planet Innovation, used Lean/DMAIC-style value stream mapping to 4x production throughput (400 to ~1600 units/month), exceeding a customer’s 1200/month scaling target. Strong in building teams and operational systems (product development, quality, supply chain) and coaching non-ops founders using structured frameworks.”

“CTO who ties technology strategy directly to business outcomes, building multi-year roadmaps with measurable ROI. Led major modernization (cloud, data platform, unified API, microservices + CI/CD) delivering 5x faster releases/deployments, 99.8% uptime, and 40% user growth without headcount increases, while scaling engineering from 15 to 80+ in ~18 months.”

Adam Safran

Screened

Engineering Director specializing in platform modernization, microservices, and cloud reliability

Pleasant Hill, CA26y exp

“Former founder (ran a custom web development shop in Los Angeles) with extensive startup experience and a solid working understanding of the VC ecosystem. Helped build and scale a team at Turo from founding member to ~10 people, and is motivated by ownership, impact, and originating ideas—interested in the venture studio model and disciplined about rapid validation and execution.”

“Candidate founded a non-profit and developed unconventional funding mechanisms for it, including a book whose proceeds support the organization and a patented AI stack designed for licensing royalties. They also bring early startup experience and acquisition due-diligence exposure, and are specifically interested in contributing their technical and venture incubation background within an existing entrepreneurial company rather than founding a new one.”