I help fast-growing tech teams solve problems and grow. I also perform technical due diligence for venture capital firms, as part of their funding process.
I work with most of my clients for either half a day or one day each week, but I also take on one-off projects. I try to always reserve some time for new clients facing an emergency, so if you're in the middle of a crisis please get in touch, and I'll do what I can.
I'm often asked to solve technical problems, like rearchitecting software, replatforming, choosing technologies, or firefighting urgent performance problems and scaling issues.
I also work with clients on technical management problems, either alongside an existing CTO or acting as the CTO. This work can include making key technical hires, improving processes and communication between teams, making software teams faster and more effective, or just maintaining progress while we find a permanent tech leader.
With many clients, I also help them solve general commercial problems: improving their understanding of their customers, improving non-technical processes to increase revenue (e.g. sales and onboarding processes), reaching product-market fit and coping with exponential growth.
I've worked on scalable web apps, beautiful responsive desktop apps and mobile apps, highly optimised supercomputer software, robust B2B automation tools, digital hardware projects, and everything else in between. I've worked in a wide range of technologies and industries too, from prototypes to fast-growing products being used around the world, so I'm happy to jump into any project in any team that wants to grow fast.
I've been writing software since I was 9, and have a degree in Computer Science and Machine Learning from Cambridge University.
I've been a Founder/CTO and Consulting CTO for a variety of companies since 2010.
There are many more recent testimonials on my LinkedIn Profile but here are some I received via email.
Hywel is a rare developer: communicative, responsive, and utterly obsessed with the finer details. He knows code inside out, but knows how to handle humans, too.
Hywel is an experienced software engineer and CTO who also understands the consumer, consumer behaviour and marketing. He is able quickly to identify the gaps in a startup idea and produce creative ways to solve them, saving business owners time and money. His skillsets are not often found together and make a powerful combination which I can highly recommend.
He used his breadth and depth of knowledge and experience to help me refine my business ideas into a viable product. He provided sound advice on the design and specifications and quickly responded to my questions, of which there were many. He talks in clear English rather than technical jargon so I always knew what was going on and understood technical decisions.
He has not only been a complete joy to work with, but he has dramatically accelerated the pace of development, allowing us to progress (tech & business dev.) in tandem. Hywel is able to translate my high-level and sometimes abstract reasoning into something tangible and actionable, showing a clear and very important ability to both work with and digest the thoughts/wants of non-technical business people. My only regret is not discovering him earlier.
26 September 2019
I’m amazed to find it’s been 8 months since my last update. I’ve clearly been busy. The ALU and status register are broadly working, but I was getting some odd behaviour when I tried to connect everything up - the clock was gradually slowing down
Read more15 January 2019
It’s been a few months since my last update, but the registers are now all fully working. I’ve been slowly building the ALU, and tested it today. It worked first time! [This post is part of a longer series about the build process for an 8-bit com
Read more15 January 2019
It’s been a few months since my last update, but the registers are now all fully working. I’ve been slowly building the ALU, and tested it today. It worked first time! [This post is part of a longer series about the build process for an 8-bit com
Read moreThe fastest way to contact me is by emailing Hywel Carver at h@hcarver.com . You can also find me on Twitter at @h_carver .