Engineering leadership for startups that have outgrown their prototype.

I help founders fix rushed or AI-built code, run engineering until they hire a full-time CTO, and ship AI features that hold up with real users.

Book a free 30-minute call →

You'll get a straight answer on what to fix first, whether or not we work together.

16years shipping production software

10+production applications launched

3engineering teams built from one engineer

2×startup co-founder and CTO

Offerings

Three ways to work together, depending on where your product is today.

Rescue Engineering

From vibe-coded prototype to production software.

Your MVP was built fast, by AI tools or an agency, and now breaks in ways nobody can explain. I find the weak spots and fix the dangerous ones first. You end up with tested code your team can build on.

Fractional CTO / VP of Engineering

Senior technical leadership before you're ready for a full-time hire.

I make the architecture calls, hire your first engineers and set up how they ship, while writing code alongside them.

AI Product Engineering

AI features that work past the demo.

Agents, search and recommendations that pass automated quality checks before each release, with LLM spend limits set before traffic grows.

Track record

2023–2026: Founding Engineer & Head of Engineering, Goodword. AI relationship-intelligence platform with web and mobile apps, built from an empty repo.
2018–2025: Principal Engineer → Director of Engineering, NCQA. FHIR-based SaaS running healthcare quality measures over millions of patient records for large health plans.
2019–2022: Co-founder & CTO, Gura and Mosabi.
2014–2018: Director of Engineering, CharityEngine. Joined as employee #5. Payments platform moving $100M+ a year in donations.

About

Most of my career has been at small companies, building things from nothing: platforms, engineering teams and, twice, the company itself. I lead from inside the codebase and add complexity only when it pays for itself.

Next step

Book a free 30-minute call →

patrick@patrickjburke.com · LinkedIn · San Diego, remote across the US