Matt Varughese

Fractional CTO with 20+ years’ experience building software and leading product and engineering teams. Supports pre-seed to Series A businesses, from hands-on leadership in early teams to coaching technical leads in companies approaching
100 people.

Focused interventions in engineering management, delivery processes, architecture, hiring and AI adoption - combining commercial judgement and leadership with the technical depth to work alongside engineers.

Practical AI experience since 2019, taking client problems from discovery and architecture through implementation and
adoption. Co-founded Drover and led a 28-person product and technology organisation across London and Lisbon; Drover was acquired by Cazoo in 2020.

Engineering Leadership Engineering management, delivery processes, hiring and team structure - from hands-on leadership in early teams to coaching technical leads.

Architecture & Delivery
Architecture and delivery practices - agile, lean, AWS and service-oriented design — that improve prioritisation, delivery and quality as teams scale.

Practical AI Adoption
Taking problems from discovery and architecture through implementation, production rollout and user adoption, including LLM and retrieval workflows with human review.

Due Diligence & Advisory
Technical due diligence and advisory for founders and investors on strategy, team structure, hiring and fundraising.

Technology leadership and hands-on delivery without the full-time overhead — for startups, scale-ups and investors.
Having co-founded Drover through to its acquisition by Cazoo, built Monolith’s low/nocode AI platform, and led AI projects for
Auquan from discovery to production, I bring founder, engineering and AI experience to every engagement.

Commercial judgement and leadership, with the technical depth to work alongside engineers.