Max D.-Fractional CTO & Hands-on Tech Lead
Check rate
Experience
Senior Software Engineer
Ynfinite
Senior Software Engineer with a core role in the architecture and product of Ynfinite, a European Webflow competitor (website builder and CMS).
- Architected a flow-based CMS configuration system with React Flow, custom graph state and node/edge interactions.
- Built a flexible visual Freeform Editor with recursive drag-and-drop, rich text editing and data bindings.
- Developed extensible inspector and reference systems for page links, components and assets.
- Built advanced CMS capabilities including interactive maps, content-type editing and CRM-connected forms.
- Technologies: TypeScript, React, Nest.js, Express.js, Prisma, PostgreSQL, Redis, BullMQ, Tailwind, Radix UI, TanStack Router
Fractional CTO
Overfly
Fractional CTO for a marketing campaign evaluation and automation product, hands-on in the code.
- Built organization-based auth, access control and management.
- Improved the application architecture, maintainability and developer tooling.
- Stabilized the AI tooling and strengthened the backend infrastructure.
- Technologies: TypeScript, React, Next.js, Prisma, PostgreSQL, BetterAuth, Tailwind, Radix UI, AI SDK, Playwright
Fractional CTO
devuto
Fractional CTO for an AI coaching app tailored to professional goals, hands-on in the code.
- Designed and built AI agents that hand over control mid-conversation, with full context customization.
- Built agent tools such as semantic search over conversation history, knowledge graphs, memories and conversation control.
- Created a fully hands-off voice assistant mode.
- Technologies: TypeScript, React, Next.js, Drizzle ORM, PostgreSQL, Clerk, Tailwind, Shadcn, Vercel, Google Cloud Platform, Groq, ElevenLabs, Neon
Senior Software Engineer
SUMM AI
Senior Software Engineer on a browser widget for automatic website content translation.
- Built a lightweight, zero-dependency widget that translates live website content, with full support for single-page applications.
- Added multi-language support, plain language support and context- and layout-aware translations.
Fractional CTO
BidPoint
Fractional CTO who led an AI data platform for tender processing, search and automation end to end, team included, and stayed hands-on in the code.
- Led the buildout of a large data ingestion pipeline with RAG, LLM data extraction and agentic workflows for company matching, and managed the dev team.
- Architected a production RAG platform for large-scale tender and document data, from ingestion to retrieval.
- Built a custom hybrid search engine combining vector search, BM25 and domain-specific filtering.
- Built high-throughput document processing pipelines with asynchronous workers, queues and deduplication.
- Built AI research and conversational systems, including LLM agents, tool calling and contextual tender chat.
- Scaled the backend across PostgreSQL, S3, microservices and CI/CD, including a migration away from PayloadCMS.
- Processed 5B tokens a month with fully searchable hybrid search on self-hosted models.
- Technologies: TypeScript, React, Node.js, Next.js, Drizzle ORM, PostgreSQL, ParadeDB, pgvector, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, CloudFlare, Traefik, Groq, Vitest
Fractional CTO
MatchDispatch
Fractional CTO for a cold outreach automation platform, hands-on in the code.
- Owned the architecture and shipped the queueing backbone that runs large volumes of background tasks in parallel.
- Integrated multiple email sending providers and built the LLM-based data enrichment process.
- Technologies: TypeScript, React, Node.js, Next.js, Drizzle ORM, PostgreSQL, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, CloudFlare, Groq
Fractional CTO
Buildery
Fractional CTO who built an AI-native website builder from the first line of code to deployed infrastructure, hands-on in the code.
- Designed a scalable, cost-effective cloud architecture and the deployment flow across test and production.
- Integrated an LLM-based AI autocomplete for user input in any language.
- Technologies: TypeScript, React, Node.js, Express, Next.js, Drizzle ORM, PostgreSQL, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, CloudFlare, OpenAI, Groq
Senior Software Engineer
Stacklist
Hands-on engineering on a social platform for travel bloggers, taking it from prototype to a launchable MVP.
- Built meta scrapers and integrated the Stripe checkout.
- Ran performance, stability and penetration tests before launch.
- Technologies: TypeScript, React, React Native, Expo, Node.js, Next.js, Firebase, Vercel, OpenAI, Pinecone
Fractional CTO / CPO
Cooko
Fractional CTO and CPO for a cocoa production company, digitizing internal processes and improving traceability. Hands-on in the code.
- Set up the cloud architecture for fast development and good maintainability.
- Created and iterated on the product roadmap.
- Built the API, React Native mobile app, web dashboard and admin panel.
- Helped form an in-house engineering team and set up a sustainable remote working culture.
- Technologies: TypeScript, React, React Native, Expo, Node.js, Strapi, Next.js, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, DigitalOcean
Interim Frontend Team Lead
GAIA
Interim Frontend Team Lead at a legal tech startup, owning the technical development of the MVP and setting best practices, processes and deployment, hands-on in the code.
- Architected and rebuilt the frontend platform, including authentication, routing, networking, i18n, error handling and CI/CD.
- Built a complex, API-driven ESOP product with dynamic forms, multi-step workflows, document handling, charts and cap table management.
- Set up a scalable frontend architecture with reusable components, strict TypeScript, testing, observability and developer tooling.
- Led hiring and interviewed engineers for the in-house team.
- Technologies: TypeScript, React, SWR, Vue.js, Node.js, Next.js, Nuxt.js, Auth0, JWT, GitHub Actions, Docker, DigitalOcean, Figma
Co-Founder, CTO
flashfix
Co-founded a bike repair company in Berlin and led technology as CTO. Digitizing Germany, one bike repair company at a time.
- Led the development of the initial B2C MVP for the bike repair service.
- Built the backend for automated bike inspections and a B2B document exchange for safety inspection certificates, and standardized the flows for easier occupational safety inspection processing.
- Managed a team of developers and designers.
- Ran market research to find product-market fit and contributed to strategy, business development and marketing.
- Technologies: JavaScript, Strapi, Next.js, PostgreSQL, Nginx, DigitalOcean, S3
Senior Software Engineer
EVVA
Senior Software Engineer on the next generation of internal tooling for a large Austrian lock manufacturer, replacing a Windows desktop app.
- Built a high-performance 100,000×100,000 data grid with virtualization, caching, range selection, filtering, sorting and real-time API integration.
- Built spreadsheet-like interactions: inline editing, keyboard navigation, multi-range selection, drag-and-drop reordering, resizing, transposition and validation.
- Architected the frontend from the ground up, including state management, networking, i18n, authentication, deployment pipelines and scalable data loading.
- Technologies: JavaScript, React, Redux, StyledComponents, Material UI, Azure Pipelines, Jest
Team Lead (Front-End)
nebenan.de
Recruited and led a team of front-end engineers for one of the largest neighborhood social networks in Europe.
- Implemented the initial website architecture, later scaled to more than 1M users in 3 languages and countries.
- Built an on-the-fly image compression microservice that cut page load time and size for web and mobile.
- Built a machine learning solution to flag commercial posts in the main feed, which increased B2B subscriptions and revenue.
- Built business- and non-profit-facing management interfaces.
- Worked with the product team to plan and prioritize features and define KPIs.
- Technologies: JavaScript, React, Redux, Sass, Webpack, Express.js, Node.js
Lead Software Engineer
swiftgift.me
Lead Engineer at a London-based e-commerce startup, responsible for the technical development of the main B2C website and related products.
- Designed and built a custom marketplace engine, migrating the site off Magento and integrating Rakuten, Facebook and other data providers.
- Organized the product team to plan and prioritize features and roadmaps.
- Recruited and led a remote team of engineers and designers, ran code reviews and set best practices.
- Technologies: JavaScript, Vue.js, Sass, Node.js, Express.js, PostgreSQL, Redis, Hetzner
Senior Software Engineer
moviepilot.com
Senior Software Engineer at a media website covering movie news.
- Implemented the mobile version of the website.
- Re-designed the desktop website to follow the same architecture.
- Built custom server-side rendering to improve SEO.
- Technologies: JavaScript, CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, jQuery, Grunt.js, Gulp.js, Node.js, Stylus
Software Engineer (Front-End)
ostrovok.ru
Front-end engineer at the number one competitor to booking.com in Russia.
- Implemented the frontend for all core features: search, mapping, clusterization and booking flows.
- Worked on experimental social media and marketing projects.
- Implemented a mobile version of the website optimized to run as a PWA.
- Technologies: JavaScript, Backbone.js, jQuery, Grunt.js, Node.js, SCSS, Redis
Freelance Software Developer
Self-employed
Freelance software developer for clients in the US, working remotely.
- Wrote custom extensions for game servers using C++, C# and Pawn.
- Managed a fleet of Ubuntu and Windows servers.
- Built custom extensions for phpBB and WordPress.
- Technologies: JavaScript, Backbone.js, jQuery, Node.js, PHP, Laravel, CodeIgniter, Sass, MySQL
Industry experience
See where this freelancer has spent most of their professional time.
Experienced in Information Technology, Tourism, Media and Entertainment, Retail, Food and Beverage, and Manufacturing.
Business area experience
See which departments and functions this freelancer has contributed to most.
Experienced in Information Technology, Product Development, Project Management, Marketing, and Human Resources.
Summary
Fractional CTO with 15+ years in tech and still hands-on in the code. I join as the technical leader: I set the technology strategy, own the architecture, build the core product with my own hands and grow the team around it. Remote from Berlin.
What I do
- Fractional and interim CTO: technology strategy, product roadmaps, hiring, mentoring, code reviews and audits.
- Architecture for SaaS, web apps and AI platforms, from MVP to production scale.
- Hands-on delivery in TypeScript, React, Node.js and PostgreSQL when the team needs a builder.
- AI engineering: RAG platforms, hybrid search, LLM agents and data pipelines.
Recent mandates
- BidPoint: as fractional CTO led a tender data platform and its dev team. Production RAG with hybrid search on self-hosted models, 5B tokens a month.
- Buildery: AI-native website builder, from the first line of code to deployed infrastructure.
- Cooko: fractional CTO/CPO for a cocoa traceability product. Roadmap, cloud architecture, mobile app, team.
- devuto: AI coaching agents and a fully hands-off voice assistant.
- GAIA: interim frontend team lead at a legal tech startup. Rebuilt the platform and led hiring.
Earlier: co-founder and CTO of flashfix, and front-end team lead at nebenan.de (1M+ users in three countries).
Skills
Technology Leadership
- Fractional And Interim Cto: Technology Strategy, Product Roadmaps, Budgets And Vendor Choices
- Software And Cloud Architecture For Saas, Web Apps And Ai Platforms
- Hiring, Mentoring And Leading Engineering Teams, Remote-First Engineering Culture
- Code Audits, Code Reviews And Technical Due Diligence
- Product Management And Delivery From Mvp To Production
Hands-On Stack
- Typescript, Javascript, Python
- React, Next.Js, Vue.Js, React Native, Expo
- Node.Js, Nest.Js, Express.Js, Fastapi
- Postgresql, Pgvector, Redis, Bullmq, Drizzle Orm, Prisma
Ai And Data
- Rag Platforms, Hybrid Search (Vector And Bm25), Llm Agents, Tool Calling
- Ai Sdk, Openai, Groq, Self-Hosted Models (Vllm)
Infrastructure
- Aws, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloudflare
- Github Actions, Ci/Cd, Testing With Vitest, Jest And Playwright
Languages
Education
Moscow Institute of International Social and Humanitarian Relations
Computer Science · Moscow, Russian Federation
Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics
Telecommunications Engineering · Moscow, Russian Federation
Statistics
Experience
Global experience
Expertise
Qualifications
Frequently asked questions
Have questions? Find more information here.
Max is based in Berlin, Germany and prefers 100% remote projects.
Max speaks the following languages: German (Native), English (Native), Russian (Native).
Max has at least 18 years of experience. During this time, Max has worked in at least 9 different roles and for 17 different companies. The average length of individual experience is 1 year and 1 month. Note that Max may not have shared all experience and actually has more experience.
Based on recent experience, Max would be well-suited for roles such as: Senior Software Engineer, Fractional CTO, Fractional CTO / CPO.
Max's most recent position is Senior Software Engineer at Ynfinite.
In recent years, Max has worked for Ynfinite, Overfly, devuto, SUMM AI, and BidPoint.
Max is most experienced in industries like Information Technology, Tourism, and Media and Entertainment. Max also has some experience in Retail, Manufacturing, and Food and Beverage.
Max is most experienced in business areas like Information Technology, Product Development, and Project Management. Max also has some experience in Marketing, Human Resources, and Quality Assurance.
Max has recently worked in industries like Information Technology, Manufacturing, and Food and Beverage.
Max has recently worked in business areas like Information Technology, Product Development, and Project Management.
Max holds a Bachelor in Computer Science from Moscow Institute of International Social and Humanitarian Relations and a Bachelor in Telecommunications Engineering from Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics.
Max is immediately available full-time for suitable projects.
Daily rate distribution
The rates shown represent the typical market range for freelancers in this position based on recent contracts on our platform.
Average rates for similar positions
Rates are based on recent contracts and do not include FRATCH margin.
The average daily rate is the mean of all daily rates from recent contracts of comparable freelancers on our platform.
The median daily rate is the middle value of all daily rates — half of comparable freelancers charge less, half charge more. Unlike the average, it is barely affected by outliers.
Calculated based on our freelancers’ daily rates as of 6 Nov 2026. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
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