Steve Taplin

CEO at Sonatafy, AI/ML led Nearshore Software Development synced with US time zones for maximum Productivity & Collaboration | Forbes & Entrepreneur Author

I am the CEO of Sonatafy Technology, where we help CTOs and engineering leaders fix software delivery problems that slow teams down and put outcomes at risk.

Most organizations do not fail because they lack talent. They fail because delivery lacks ownership, structure, and senior technical leadership.

At Sonatafy, we focus on predictable software delivery through a combined US-based and nearshore model. Our teams operate through managed delivery pods, CTO-level consulting, and outcome-driven execution designed to clear backlogs, reduce technical debt, and restore delivery confidence.

I spend most of my time working with technology executives who are dealing with stalled roadmaps, growing backlogs, legacy modernization, DevOps bottlenecks, and distributed teams that are busy but not effective.

In addition to leading Sonatafy, I host the Software Leaders Uncensored podcast, where I have candid conversations with more than 160 software leaders about what actually works and what does not when it comes to building, scaling, and delivering software.

I am also the author of "Fail Hard, Win Big," a book grounded in real-world experience building and scaling companies, focusing on resilience, execution, and the lessons learned when things do not go according to plan. Many of the principles in the book directly apply to leadership, decision-making, and delivery inside modern software organizations.

My perspective is shaped by decades of building companies, scaling engineering teams, and learning the hard way that execution beats strategy when accountability is missing.

If you are a CTO, VP of Engineering, or technology executive looking to improve delivery outcomes without adding chaos, I am always open to thoughtful conversations.

Chief Executive Officer & Board Member

Sonatafy Technology is a premier nearshore software development services company that provides its clients with expertise in Cloud Solutions, Web and Mobile Applications, E-Commerce, Big Data, DevOps Practices, QA, IoT, and Machine Learning.   With current and past signature clients such as IBM, FOX, Cisco, TaylorMade, Caterpillar, Alcatel, and more. Sonatafy Technology helps software teams perform at their best.

Software stocks are sliding on the narrative that AI is about to gut SaaS.
 
That narrative is wrong.
 
AI is not ruining software. It is reshaping it.
 
Salesforce, Snowflake, and other platform players are not being replaced. They are embedding AI directly into their ecosystems. The data, compliance layers, workflows, and integrations still live inside enterprise software. AI runs on top of that foundation.
 
AI without enterprise systems is noise.  Enterprise systems with AI become force multipliers.
 
This is not the end of software. It is a reset for companies that fail to evolve.
 
The real risk is not AI.  It is standing still.

CEO, Sonatafy Technology | Software Delivery Done Right | Host of Software Leaders Uncensored Podcast | Best-Selling Author, Fail Hard, Win Big | Forbes & Entrepreneur Contributor

Open article: After weeks of getting bashed, two software giants can make the case for why AI won't kill them by businessinsider.com

After weeks of getting bashed, two software giants can make the case for why AI won't kill them

One of the most dangerous signals inside a technology company is a growing backlog.
 
On the surface it looks like productivity.
 
Lots of tickets.  Lots of work happening.  Lots of sprint activity.
 
But if the backlog continues growing while engineering headcount increases, something deeper is wrong.
 
This is what I call 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝗜𝗹𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻.
 
Teams appear busy, but fewer capabilities are actually reaching production.
 
The real issue is usually coordination overhead.
 
As engineering teams scale, dependencies multiply, meetings increase, and integration complexity rises.
 
Execution slows even though activity increases.
 
Great engineering organizations design systems that protect delivery flow.
 
They do not simply add more developers.
 
#SoftwareDevelopment   #EngineeringLeadership  #TechLeadership

Great conversation with Michael Cieri on The Software Leaders UNCENSORED Podcast!

View company: The Software Leaders UNCENSORED Podcast

From product decisions to engineering priorities, designing for SMBs means meeting customers where they are, not where we assume they should be.

Host Steve Taplin and Michael Cieri, EVP of Software at BILL, emphasize an important point many leaders miss: SMB customer challenges are unique, and addressing them requires focus, empathy, and a genuine understanding of how these businesses truly function.

Check the full episode in the comments!

#AI
#BILL
#Podcast
#SteveTaplin
#MichaelCieri
#SonatafyTechnology
#SoftwareLeadersUncensored

Product failure rarely starts in engineering. 
It starts with a misaligned product strategy.
 
That is why Sonatafy Technology | Software Delivery Done Right, we introduced our Fractional CPO Enablement Offering.
 
Too many companies build features instead of outcomes. 
Roadmaps become wish lists. 
Engineering burns cycles. 
Customers do not feel the impact.
 
On the The Software Leaders UNCENSORED Podcast, the strongest product leaders always have one thing in common. Ruthless clarity.
 
Fractional product leadership gives you that clarity without committing to a full-time executive salary before you are ready.
 
Product discipline is leverage.

Stay tuned! New episode of The Software Leaders UNCENSORED Podcast drops tomorrow! Great talk with Todd Persen.

🎙️ New episode of The Software Leaders UNCENSORED Podcast drops tomorrow!

In this upcoming episode, host Steve Taplin is joined by Todd Persen, CTO of Hydrolix, for a deep dive into organizational structure and leadership alignment.

Todd shares his perspective on the importance of keeping product and engineering as separate reporting structures while ensuring they remain in constant communication.

The balance is critical: clear ownership and accountability on one side, continuous collaboration on the other. When product and engineering challenge and inform each other consistently, teams move faster and make better decisions.

Stay tuned.

#AI
#Podcast
#Hydrolix
#SteveTaplin
#ToddPersen
#SonatafyTechnology
#SoftwareLeadersUncensored

New episode of The Software Leaders UNCENSORED Podcast it's live! Great conversation, Martin Mrugal!

🎙️ Check out a new episode of The Software Leaders UNCENSORED Podcast!

This time, host Steve Taplin sat down with Martin Mrugal, CEO of Alchemer, to talk about the evolution of customer feedback platforms and why most companies still aren’t using their data effectively.

They dive into:
- How AI is transforming customer feedback analysis
- Why speed of innovation is now a competitive advantage
- The future of surveys (and why over-surveying can backfire)
- Turning customer feedback into operational improvement, not just market research
- Building a genuinely customer-centric culture
- Making tough CEO decisions, balancing customer demands with security and tech debt
- Why AI enhances development but still requires human oversight
Martin brings a pragmatic, operator-focused perspective on leadership, innovation, and making decisive moves in a fast-paced environment.

Check the full episode in the comments!

#AI
#Podcast
#Alchemer
#SteveTaplin
#MartinMrugal
#SonatafyTechnology
#SoftwareLeadersUncensored

Most software projects fail before a single line of code is written.

Not because of bad developers. Because nobody translates what the business needs into what engineers should build.

I've spent 15 years in that gap... as a CTO, founder, and the person companies call when their tech is broken and their agency ghosted them.

Built 50+ production apps. Scaled EdTech to 7,000 users at Georgia Tech. Helped CITYROW streamline ops to acquisition. Sold my own SaaS.

Now I write about what actually works in software — and what's expensive theater.

I also run ThreeDays.ai: custom business software in 3 days for $5K. Because most companies don't need a 6-month roadmap. They need working software by Monday.

Follow for unfiltered takes on AI, software strategy, and building things that matter.

Gabe Perez

𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐥𝐞𝐲’𝐬 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐒 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝟒𝟎 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬. 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐀𝐈 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐒 — 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬.

I just read a sharp piece by Namanyay Goel that captures what many of us building in AI already feel.

Customers have tasted “vibe coding.”

They’ve seen a PM spin up a dashboard in a day.
They’ve watched finance rebuild internal workflows with APIs.

And now they’re asking:
Why are we paying $30k–$300k a year for software that almost fits our work?

Public markets are noticing.
Morgan Stanley’s SaaS basket lagging.
HubSpot and Klaviyo down ~30%.

This isn’t random volatility.
It’s psychology.

The renewal conversation has changed.

Here’s the part most people miss:
Vibe-coded tools are flexible.
But they’re fragile.
No RBAC.
No audit logs.
No SOC2.
No data residency guardrails.
Security is invisible when it works.
Until it doesn’t.
The winners won’t be SaaS companies with more features.

They’ll be the ones who become:
1. The System of Record
2. The secure backbone
3. The platform customers build on top of

The shift is subtle but massive:
From “use our product.”
To “build on our platform.”

If you’re a B2B SaaS founder and you’re still optimizing feature checklists instead of flexibility, this post should make you uncomfortable.

Save this for your next board meeting.
Send it to your head of product.
Or tell me I’m completely wrong.
But don’t ignore the shift.

AI isn’t eating SaaS.
It’s eating rigidity.

#SaaS #ArtificialIntelligence #B2B #Startups #ProductManagement

Everyone’s an AI expert. I just ship with it | Led tech at CITYROW through acquisition | 10k+ users at GaTech | Rock climber, boricua 🇵🇷

𝐌𝐈𝐓 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐬…𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐭𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐀𝐆𝐈. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐤𝐞… 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐬

For a few days, 1.7M bots “talked” to each other on a social network powered by OpenClaw.

People saw the future of autonomous agents. I saw pattern-matching at scale.
The bots weren’t coordinating. They weren’t forming shared goals.

They weren’t evolving intent.
They were mimicking Reddit with better fluency.

One expert said it best:
“Connectivity alone is not intelligence.”

This is where a lot of AI builders get it wrong at work.

Wire enough agents together and it looks emergent.
It feels like something big is happening.
But scale isn’t cognition. Fluency isn’t understanding.
And when those agents have access to email, wallets, or internal tools?
Now you don’t just have noise. You have risk.

Moltbook didn’t show us AGI.
It showed us how badly we want to see it.

If you’re building agent systems for business, focus on:
Shared memory. Shared objectives. Tight permissions.

Otherwise you’re not building intelligence.

Agree — or are we closer to real autonomy than I think?

#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Startups #MachineLearning #TechStrategy

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