MetaCTO

Mobile app design and development that helps business owners create new revenue streams, increase customer lifetime value, and improve profit margins.

Partner

olive

Head of Engineering

Round

Round is a curated community of technology executives and senior leaders who support, grow, mentor, and learn from each other. The Round experience supports leaders who are at the forefront of technology, working on products and services that have an outsized impact on the world.

Founding Member

Power Digital Marketing

Team and product leadership for the Nova platform at Power Digital Marketing. The machine learning platform that can analyze any business’s growth opportunities, build a marketing strategy to execute on them, and track progress across 13+ channels in custom-tailored dashboards.

VP Engineering & Product

KlientBoost

Founded, launched and sold a marketing tech SaaS product.

- Grew team of 6 engineers plus product design and support staff
- Managed feature roadmap, technical architecture, development, delivery, and support
- Produced 50% trial-to-paid customer conversions
- Created education path for junior engineers
- Managed agile process of reviews, retros, standup, backlog

The flagship product for Kite Software integrated with Google Ads API to analyze accounts with custom algorithms and generate ROI focused recommendations. Scaled to process millions of records at a time with AWS serverless and queue services. Built with TypeScript, Node.js, Express, Python, Serverless, React, Redux, CircleCI, Docker, Gatsby, GraphQL.

VP Engineering, Kite Software

Maverick

Lead server side API development and web application team to support iOS startup venture creating a new social community for empowering young women. genmaverick.com

Develop microservices with NodeJS and MongoDB.  React and redux front end development.  Machine learning for moderation and transcriptions.  Rapid feature development including comments service, trending algorithms, and gamification progression engine.  Support PHP Zend MySQL API framework.  Mentor and train team members.  Manage technical contractors and support the agile development process.

Software Engineering Manager

JNR Incorporated

- Designed and developed a Node.js and MongoDB microservice-based API with a custom Express Gateway on an AWS Lambda-hosted serverless environment (api.paymentrise.com).
- Built a React and Redux front-end web application for customers to redeem prepaid reward cards with unique offer codes for BoostMobile clients.
- Led the technical team for new product development, defined software engineering processes, and implemented Agile Scrum methodologies.
- Created a custom Python script for serverless S3 deployment integrated with GitLab CI/CD.
- Introduced Git, Continuous Integration (CI), and Agile project methodologies to the team.
- Led the migration of a data center to an AWS cloud-hosted environment.
- Developed and supported large-scale Prepaid Card Industry applications for incentive programs, card activation, and card ordering.
- Built a REST API to securely interface new applications with legacy cardholder data systems, ensuring PCI DSS compliance at all levels.

Senior Software Architect, Lead

Blink Development, Inc.

Founded Blink Development with one partner and grew to a peak staff over 10 employees servicing website development and marketing.  Launched and serviced over 40 projects in 5 years, generating over $1.5M annual gross revenue.  Served as lead developer on all major projects.

Founder & Lead Developer

Fletcher Jones Motorcars

Started as a PC installation technician in 1999.  Advanced through many positions over 11 years with responsibilities including database administration, web development, help desk, project management, vendor management, and ultimately data warehousing and BI analysis with C#, .NET MVC, SharePoint, MSSQL Server, and SSRS.

Business Information Analyst, Developer, System Admin

At MetaCTO, we build custom mobile apps that help businesses grow new revenue streams, create online communities, increasing customer LTV with digital products, and make client communication more personal.

Christopher Fitkin

Young software devs are in BIG trouble.

Yes, it’s AI-related. No, it’s not what you think…

AI is not just taking your job…. AI is taking your skill.

Back in the day, if I got stuck, I’d call a friend or watch some YouTube videos - building, breaking, fixing, understanding why. I wrestled with the code until it finally clicked. But those days are gone.

Less YouTube… more vibe coding with AI. Letting Cursor or ChatGPT handle the hard parts. Then… when things aren’t working, “It’s this stupid prompt!”

The problem isn’t AI writing mediocre code.
It’s that too many new devs are letting it ‘think’ for them.

That’s dangerous!

Not just for devs, but for the companies that will hire them. If this trend continues, it’ll become harder and harder to find experienced devs - not to mention… expensive!

If AI writes all your early code, you never learn why things work. And when something breaks (and it always does), you’re lost.

So if you’re learning to code… sure, use AI.

But don’t forget what actually makes you valuable… asking questions, getting explanations, exploring ideas, breaking things, fixing them.

Write code yourself.

AI won’t make coding obsolete.

Because coding isn’t the hard part. Thinking is.

Coding is just putting decisions into a machine. The real work happens before a single line of code is written:

→ Understanding the problem
→ Resolving ambiguity
→ Designing systems
→ Building something that actually works in the real world for real people

The engineering part.
Coding is the boring/easy part.
(or it should be, or you’ve already made a big mistake)

AI can clear away the boilerplate and speed up execution, sure. But it can’t tell you what to build, why it matters, or how it should behave under pressure.

That’s the hard part. That’s the human part. No tool for that yet, unfortunately.

That’s why great engineers will always matter… no matter how good the tools get.

My reflections as a seasoned dev.

How things have changed. And how nothing has changed.

When I started coding 20 years ago, I thought experience was about knowing the latest tech stack and knowing how to speak to stakeholders. But I’m wiser now.

Now I know it’s about pattern recognition.

You see enough product launches, tech fads, and “revolutions,” and you realize - most of it’s just a remix of the same few lessons.

Back then it was cloud computing. Then mobile. Then blockchain. Now it’s AI.

Every cycle starts the same way… big promises, endless hype, and a bunch of companies racing to “adopt” it before they even know why.

But the people who kept their heads down, focused on fundamentals, and used the new tools responsibly end up miles ahead.

That’s what I’ve learned as a dev, a CTO, and now as a founder.

The technology always changes.
The patterns never do.

You build. You test. You fail. You learn. Then you do it again.

AI is just the newest tool in the box. Powerful? Absolutely. Transformative? Potentially. But like every tool before it… it’s only as useful as the people using it.

And that’s what I love most about this work.

The technology evolves every year, but the craft of building new things is timeless. How cool is that?

A software dev agency can be EXPENSIVE.

Relying on vibe-coding can be CATASTROPHIC.

I’m seeing more and more founders come to me with apps that were “built with AI.”

They say: 
“Faster, cheaper, modern”

Reality says: 
“Chris, you’re about to spend 2+ weeks cleaning up this mess I made in 2 hours.”

Because 9 times out of 10, the code is slow, not secure, and stitched together with ZERO understanding of architecture. Functions deleted. Logic duplicated. API calls written by AI that don’t actually work in production.

They thought they saved money by going cheap.

But by the time I’m brought in, they’ve already spent 3x fixing what should have been done right the first time.

This is the hidden cost of “vibe-coding”… when developers (or agencies) lean on AI to “move fast,” but skip all the fundamentals: planning, testing, structure, and review.

AI can: scaffold + boilerplate.
AI can NOT: design a system, handle edge cases, think through the user experience.

If you’re hiring a dev team right now, make sure they:

a) Can explain why they’re using AI, not just that they are
b) Have a review process that catches AI mistakes early
c) Know how to architect clean, maintainable code

It’s cheaper - and far less painful - to get it built right the first time than to pay someone like me to untangle it later.

Hire builders > vibe-coders

A concerned friend asked me if he should worry about the AWS outage. My answer: "Nope! If AWS goes down, so does half the internet. Your customers will understand.”

Even the biggest players out there aren’t fully “multi-cloud.”

HubSpot and Jira could spend millions to make their systems redundant across AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure… but they don’t.

Why? Because it’s:

a) extremely expensive
b) extremely complicated
c) extremely unnecessary

99.9% of the time, AWS works flawlessly.
And when it doesn’t… they recover fast.
Simple as that.

“Multi-cloud” just doubles your complexity. You’re now maintaining 2 versions of your app on 2 platforms that don’t talk to each other. That means 2x the bugs, 2x the monitoring, and 2x the headaches…

All to protect against something that happens maybe once every few years.

If you’re a startup or SMB, my advice is to prioritize recovery, not invincibility.

You’ll make far more progress by building systems that bounce back quickly when things break instead of trying to prevent every possible failure forever.

So no, you don’t need to panic about AWS. 😉

Indeed is stopping senior devs mentoring junior devs.

Seems pretty shortsighted to me.

When I was starting out, I learned almost everything that mattered from senior devs who took the time to explain the “why” not just the “how”. These conversations made me think differently about architecture, tradeoffs, and people.

Mentorship shaped my entire career and I know a lot of devs who’d say the same.

So when I see companies like Indeed stepping away from mentorship in favor of AI “efficiency”… 
I understand (they think it sounds smart & boards love it). But it’s premature. And honestly, a bit shortsighted.

And it’s not just mentorship. Indeed hasn’t hired juniors or interns in years.

These points kept coming to my mind:

a) How will they keep up with inevitable amount of mistakes AI will cause
b) They’re losing future leaders (but shareholders need “NOW”)
c) Culture erodes fast (everyone under ‘senior’ panics & looks for other opportunities just in case)

Curious to hear everyone else’s thoughts though.

Businesses… this is a warning:

Don’t “use AI” for the sake of “using AI”.

Lately, I’m seeing articles of companies tracking how much their engineers use AI.

How silly!

I’m not a fan of all this “adopt AI or get fired” talk in the tech industry. If you’re forcing your team to “use AI more” just to check a box… you’ve missed the point of AI.

Good engineers use the right tool for the job - not whatever’s trending on LinkedIn. When you make AI usage a performance metric, you stop incentivizing results and start incentivizing “busy work”.

Think about it from a dev’s perspective -

If you’re going to pay them to use AI… you’ll get diagrams no one asked for, scripts no one runs, and dashboards that look cool but do nothing.

And for what?

Engineers are your most valuable asset. Not some AI tool you started to use in 2024 because every post on LinkedIn tells you to “leverage AI”.

Engineers are the reason any of this tech works in the first place!

So yes, AI can make good engineers faster.
But no, it can’t make bad incentives smarter.

I’ve been building things my whole life.

Age 5: messing around in MS-DOS and BASIC.

Age 16:
- got paid for my first “professional” project - a car auction site - in the form of a black 1990 Jeep Cherokee (still one of my favorite paychecks).

Age 18:
- went to college thinking I’d be a lawyer. Majored in Political Science & Italian. But the whole time, I was secretly doing my roommates’ CS homework because I just enjoyed coding.

After school, I skipped law school & took a job as a business data analyst.

Age 22:
- quit and started my first web dev agency. That lasted five years… then collapsed.

Age 27:
- spent the next decade in-house - startups, MarTech, AdTech, big engineering orgs. Built massive teams. Learned P&L, delivery, sales motions, investor pressure, and how thousand-person agencies really operate.

I think it was at this time that I realized something important: I’m a builder. First software. Then teams. Now companies.

2024:
- my now-business partner, Garrett, called me and said: “Hey, I’m starting an agency. Want to join me?”

I quit the next day.

Year 1 of MetaCTO:
- scrappy. Just a small team building great products, relying on our network, getting stuck in.

Year 2 of MetaCTO: 
- we went all-in on growth: SEO, PPC, partnerships. Grew ~300% YoY vs Year 1.

We started working with incredible people/companies:

• Jamie – Head of Engineering 
• Kristen – Head of Revenue 
• Closed official partnerships with RevenueCat, and building motions with AppsFlyer + CleverTap

We also hit major milestones: From near-zero organic traffic → 1,600 monthly visitors + 84 inbound leads last month.

We’re building MetaCTO into a $50M+ product & engineering partner.

So… why do I do this?

1. I love building things
- mobile app MVPs, AI features, even entire engineering org - creating gives me life.

2. I love helping others succeed
- I spent years building software for startups. I know exactly what founders go through: pressure, confusion, tradeoffs.

3. I want to build the company I wish I’d had as a partner
- a place where builders get to build, clients get clarity instead of bureaucracy, value gets created & not extracted

If you read this far - thanks.

This is the stuff I never shared, but probably should have years ago.

If you’re building a product and need help with strategy, AI features, or mobile execution… my DMs are open.

Bureaucracy kills creativity.

Daily standups, PR reviews, design reviews, stakeholder reviews of the design reviews…

You could spend a whole week talking about building… instead of actually building. That’s one of the biggest reasons I started my own company. Just solving real problems for real people.

(Is that cliché? Man, that sounds cliché. But, I guess its true so 🤷‍♂️)

To keep our focus on what matters, our process looks more like this:

1️⃣ Find the real problem (not the one written in the Jira ticket)
2️⃣ Build an MVP fast
3️⃣ Get feedback (usually some more features)
4️⃣ Iterate
5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣ Client happy. Ship it. Send the invoice

No red tape.

(Unless the client sells gift wrapping… then maybe, yeah. Some red tape.)

“Vibe coding” is Collins Dictionary’s Word of the Year

✅ The good: more people than ever are being exposed to coding. That’s exciting.

❌ The bad: we don’t yet know the long-term effects - i.e. poorly written, AI-generated code could mean major security breaches and costly maintenance down the line.

Double-edged sword.

Curious - where do you fall on this? Excited or skeptical?

I won’t @ the company.

But some chatbots do more harm than good!

I can’t share my actual screenshots (they mention their name), but so you can get an understanding of my experience with a pretty well-known company’s chatbot last week…

Check out my image for this post.
Yeah, that was basically it.

And this company is massive! Makes me question all the companies completely outsourcing their customer service.

Collaborated with Meta on the development of a Creative Affinity tool, supported by a $400,000 investment from Meta, to merge first-party data with ad creative analysis. Driving profitable growth by allowing marketers to quickly identify what creative(s) are successful.

Directed the development of multiple internal data analytics tools that helped clients reduce Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), driving over $10M in additional annual revenue.

Spearheaded the leadership and mentorship of multiple cross-functional teams, including software engineers, QA engineers, UI designers, and data scientists, fostering collaboration and innovation to deliver high-impact software solutions. Focused on skill development and team cohesion, resulting in improved efficiency, enhanced product quality, and successful alignment with business objectives.

LuLaRoe

Oversaw end-to-end software engineering operations and third-party platform integrations for a billion-dollar apparel company.

Modernized a direct selling eCommerce platform, introducing integrations across iOS, Android, and web, driving $1B in annual wholesale revenue.

Successfully launched a B2B and B2C cloud platform leveraging AWS and Azure, resulting in $2B annual revenue growth.

Built and mentored a high-performance engineering team, that built and supported solutions allowing the revenue growth from $1M/month to over $100M/month within the first 12 months.

Collaborated with executive leadership to align technology strategies with corporate growth objectives.

Manager of Software Development

PhD Labs

Lead and manage in-house and offshore development teams to ensure the successful delivery of custom mobile applications that meet client needs and expectations.

Serve as the primary liaison between clients and development teams, facilitating clear communication, gathering requirements, and ensuring alignment throughout the project lifecycle.

Oversee the day-to-day operations of the in-house team, including scheduling, time tracking, billing, and invoicing, to maintain efficiency and project profitability.

Engage with new clients to understand their mobile application needs, provide expert recommendations, and prepare detailed Statements of Work (SOWs) to define project scope and objectives.

Senior Project Manager

PneuDraulics, Inc

Served as the sole software engineer, responsible for managing and maintaining IIS and SQL servers to ensure the stability and performance of web applications.

Self-taught ASP.Net to develop and enhance web pages and applications for both Internet and intranet sites, alongside classic ASP solutions.

Designed, built, and maintained custom web applications, ensuring seamless functionality and integration with existing systems.

Acted as the technical lead for multiple third-party web applications, including SyberWorks Training Center, overseeing implementation, troubleshooting, and ongoing support.

Web Administrator

SunGard Higher Education Managed Services, Inc.

Lead and manage a team of web developers to support the custom development needs of college CTOs, ensuring high-quality solutions tailored to institutional requirements.

Maintain ongoing communication with client executives and staff to understand their technical challenges and provide strategic guidance on web services integration.

Evaluate proposed technology projects, assess their feasibility within existing systems, and recommend effective solutions to enhance operational efficiency.

Provide expertise and consultation to committees, user groups, and special seminars, contributing to the strategic direction of technology initiatives.

Actively participate in the development of custom web applications using ASP and SQL Server to meet the evolving needs of college clients.

Web Center Manager

Claremont McKenna College

Served as the sole software engineer responsible for the college’s websites, web server, and database server, ensuring seamless operation, security, and performance.

Established programmatic standards for the college’s websites and collaborated with the systems manager to develop and maintain web infrastructure.

Designed and implemented web interfaces for administrative information systems, working closely with the administrative computing group to enhance accessibility and efficiency.

Developed custom web applications, functions, and system integrations using ASP to meet the needs of various departments and offices.

Managed and maintained over 60 websites hosted on IIS 5/6, ensuring uptime, security, and optimal performance.

Acted as the database administrator for enterprise MS SQL Servers, handling database creation, maintenance, stored procedures, and job automation using DTS packages.

Served as the technical lead for several third-party software solutions, including a web-based calendar system and a room scheduling system, ensuring smooth integration and operation.

Web Engineer

Engineering Leader | Strategic IT Planner | AI Enthusiast

Experienced Engineering Manager with over 24 years of expertise in IT and enterprise software solutions. Proven track record in strategic planning, cross-functional team leadership, and driving successful software integrations. Skilled communicator and results-oriented leader with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems.

I began my career as a software developer, building web applications using Classic ASP, PHP, and ASP.NET. Transitioning into project management, I led teams of local and offshore developers using Agile/Scrum methodologies to deliver custom web applications for diverse clients across industries.

For the past ten years, I’ve overseen multiple internal and offshore teams, including software engineers, QA engineers, and data scientists. I’ve been responsible for managing resources, processes, and projects essential for the delivery and maintenance of mission-critical software systems and web applications. My role has included strategic planning, implementation of new software solutions, and aligning technology initiatives with overarching business goals.

Committed to continuous growth, I actively stay informed about emerging technologies and leadership best practices. I frequently attend technology and leadership conferences to ensure I bring innovation and effective leadership strategies to every project and team I manage.

Let’s connect to discuss technology leadership, strategic planning, and driving impactful results in software engineering.

taplio

The Battle

Christopher Fitkin

Todd Goulding

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Christopher Fitkin's LinkedIn Performance

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