Brett Lee
Fractional CTO | AI Engineering Consultant | Software Architecture
Operating focus
Industry experience
Fintech · Gaming & Entertainment · SaaS · EdTech · Healthtech · Consumer Hardware
Company stages
Seed · Series A · Series B · Growth
Operating regions
North America · Europe
Languages
English
Executive statement
Fractional CTO and AI engineering consultant for startups and small teams that need senior technical judgment without a full-time hire. I help you decide what to build, how to build it, and where AI actually fits, then stay involved until it ships. I've worked in tech since 2001, starting at Apple, and have built software and led software development teams since 2010 at Pearson, PlayStation, SoFi, and various startups. Today I run O'Side Systems, a fractional CTO and AI consulting practice in Oceanside, California. WHAT I CAN DO FOR YOU - Architecture review: an independent assessment of your codebase, infrastructure, and roadmap, with the top risks and a recommended order of work - Scaling past the MVP: the architecture and sequencing to grow without a rewrite - Legacy modernization: replacing a system piece by piece while it stays in service - AI readiness assessment: where AI coding agents will help your team, where they won't, and the controls you need before scaling them - Team and process design: hiring plans, ownership boundaries, code review, CI/CD, and delivery practices sized for your team - Ongoing fractional CTO: a part-time technical leader for your founders, board, and engineers RESULTS - Cut new client onboarding from roughly three months to days or weeks for an actuarial machine learning firm, by designing a new client framework and leading a team of four to six engineers through an incremental platform replacement - Led globally distributed teams of 20+ engineers at PlayStation on systems serving tens of millions of users - Directed an initiative that reduced financial exposure by more than $100M - As CTO of a San Diego hardware startup, took a connected product from concept to deployment at multiple universities HOW I WORK 1. A short call about the actual problem. If I'm not the right fit, I'll say so. 2. A fixed-price assessment with a written report you keep either way. 3. A defined pilot with one measurable outcome. 4. A part-time retainer if there's more to do. I give a plain opinion on which way to go and what it costs. I'm a good fit if you have a product in market or close to it and a small team where decisions still travel fast. I'm not the right hire if you need a full-time developer. I also build what I advise on: I created CTOsphere, tooling for teams whose code is increasingly written by AI agents, and I use AI-assisted engineering daily to ship production software. M.S. Software Engineering, California State University, Fullerton. Pacific time. Available for in-person work in San Diego County and remote work elsewhere.
Leadership scope
Fractional CTO and AI engineering consultant through O'Side Systems, based in Oceanside and serving San Diego County and remote clients. Scale: I have led teams from 4 to 20+ engineers across North America, Europe, and India, including platform, backend, full-stack, data, and QA, and currently lead a nine-engineer platform organization. Decision rights I typically hold: technical strategy and architecture, roadmap and sequencing, build-versus-buy and vendor selection, hiring plans and team structure, engineering process and release practices, and incident and operational readiness. I report to the founder, CEO, or an executive sponsor and work directly with product, security, and business stakeholders. Fractional scope: architecture and scaling after the proof of concept, modernizing systems that cannot go offline, team and ownership design, and AI strategy, meaning where AI coding agents earn their place and the controls needed before scaling them. I have worked in tech since 2001, starting at Apple, and have built software and led software development teams since 2010 at Pearson, PlayStation, SoFi, and various startups.
Selected outcomes
- Cut new client onboarding from about 3 months to days or weeks at an actuarial machine learning firm by leading an incremental platform replacement.
- Reduced financial exposure by more than $100M directing a recovery initiative on PlayStation's loyalty platform.
- Led globally distributed teams of 20+ engineers and QA on systems serving tens of millions of users and billions of daily events.
- Saved $60K per month through a multicloud database migration while keeping 24/7 global services stable.
- Founded an embedded accelerator team to turn around at-risk programs; the model was replicated with a second team in Dublin.
- As startup CTO, took a connected hardware and software product from concept to deployment at multiple universities.
Profile verified 2026-10-12. Direct contact details are shared only after a mutual introduction.