Russell Wong
Fractional CTO for founders making high-stakes AI decisions
3 founder-CTO tenures since 2014, plus founding engineer at Redactive.
2 acquisitions in 2025: Remo → events.com, Redactive → RecordPoint.
$10M ARR Year 1 at Remo · Granted US patent + 4 published applications.
I help founders de-risk AI architecture before bad decisions slow execution, stall hiring, or weaken fundraising.
Working with founders across the US, UK, and Australia. Based in Adelaide. Maximum 2 fractional CTO clients at a time.
WHO I WORK WITH
I work with founders and product leaders making high-stakes technical decisions around AI architecture, search, agents, and team scaling.
- Funded seed companies building their first serious AI product, where early architecture choices will shape the next 12–18 months of execution.
- Series A+ companies adding meaningful AI capability — RAG, agents, semantic search, evals, workflow automation — without hiring a full-time CTO or Head of AI yet.
- Profitable or bootstrapped companies adding AI to an existing product, where the core team is strong on the existing stack but needs senior judgment on the AI layer.
I work well with both technical and non-technical leadership teams, especially where key trade-offs need to be turned into clear founder-level decisions.
Not a fit if: you need a hands-on contractor to ship day-to-day code, a full-time employee, daily delivery management, or your technical leadership budget is below the executive tier.
TRACK RECORD
I've built, scaled, and shipped across product, ML, search, real-time systems, and engineering leadership.
Built Remo.co MVP and scaled to $10M ARR in Year 1 as CTO, reaching 250K peak MAU. 10x ROI for investors.
Built hybrid vector search engine for Redactive. Product sold to RecordPoint in 2025.
Continuous CTO with the same founding team through the pivot from Riotly to Remo (2017–2022).
Scaled engineering team at Remo.co across the US, Europe, Philippines, Ukraine, and India with 95% retention.
Granted US patent for interactive communications. CTO at Remo.co (acquired by events.com, 2025) and founding engineer at Redactive (acquired by RecordPoint, 2025).
SERVICES
I offer three ways to work together.
Architecture Review
3 weeks · US$25,000 · Fixed scopeA deep technical audit of your AI architecture and product direction. Deliverables include: current-state assessment, key risks, prioritized recommendations, and a written reference architecture for the next 6 months.
Designed to reduce technical risk before it becomes expensive.
Best for: founders who suspect their AI stack has problems, or who are about to make significant architecture, platform, or hiring decisions and want a senior second opinion.
Fractional CTO
From US$30,000/month · 2 days/week · 3-month minimumOngoing senior technical leadership without hiring a full-time CTO yet. Includes architecture decisions, technical strategy, hiring support, delivery oversight, investor / board support, and direct involvement in your highest-leverage engineering decisions.
Best for: founders at funded seed through Series A who need consistent senior judgment and execution leverage before hiring a full-time CTO.
Founder AI Advisory
From US$5,000/month · Limited scopeA lighter-touch advisory relationship for founders who want senior product and AI judgment without an ongoing operating role.
Includes:
- 2 calls per month
- Limited async feedback on architecture, hiring, roadmap, and major AI decisions
- Review of specific decisions, not ongoing ownership
Best for: teams that already have technical leadership and want occasional senior judgment on a small number of important AI decisions.
Prior advisory clients: Heystak, HK Set Sail Venture (2022–2023).
Not included:
- Hands-on implementation or production code
- Team or delivery management
- Ongoing ownership of technical decisions
- On-call or Slack-on-demand access
Not suitable if you need someone to run engineering, manage delivery, unblock your team daily, or build the system for you.
BACKGROUND
Founder-CTO and technical leader for 12+ years across AI-native and social / communication startups.
Relocated from Hong Kong to Adelaide in 2022, with permanent residency via Australia's Global Talent program.
- 2023–2026Founding engineer · Redactive → Quarterzip
Built hybrid vector search engine across 12M+ documents. Product sold to RecordPoint in October 2025; founding team continued as Quarterzip on a new agentic product line. Stayed through the transition.
- 2017–2022CTO · Riotly → Remo.co
5-year continuous tenure with one founding team. Pivoted Riotly Social Media to Remo.co in 2019; took Remo from concept to $10M ARR in Year 1 and scaled engineering from 2 to 20+. Acquired by events.com in 2025. Shipped deep-learning virtual background (computer vision on the live video pipeline).
- EarlierCo-founder & CTO · Wondrful, Six Avenue
Wondrful: Rust + AWS + LLM-powered Chrome extension. Six Avenue Ltd: Android / iOS social networking; named inventor on 4 published US patent applications.
Interactive Enhanced Communications (US 11,647,064 B1) — real-time facial-tracking video layout behind Remo's virtual events experience.
- Affinity Is Not Enough: Recovering the Free Energy Principle in Mixture-of-Experts (2026) — fixing sparse-MoE routing failures at domain transitions via temporal memory and anticipatory gating. Code.
- Scalable Topic-Based Affinity Propagation Implementation (2014) — MSc thesis, HK PolyU. Topical Affinity Propagation on Spark for large-scale social-graph analysis.
MSc Information Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. BSc Computing, Staffordshire University.
Rust, Python, TypeScript · GCP (GKE, ArgoCD), AWS · gRPC, Dask, Dramatiq · vector / semantic search, agentic systems.
HOW ENGAGEMENTS WORK
- You book a 30-minute discovery call (free).
- If we're a fit, I send a written proposal within 48 hours with specific scope, deliverables, timeline, and price.
- We sign a written agreement. 50% upfront for fixed-scope projects, 100% upfront monthly for retainers.
- Most engagements begin within 1–2 weeks, depending on fit and timing.
- Retainers: 60-day notice to terminate
- All scope changes require written change orders
FAQ
Are you available right now?
Availability rotates. Book a discovery call to check current capacity.
Why not hire a full-time CTO or head of AI instead?
A full-time senior CTO takes 3–6 months to find, costs US$250–300K+ per year in salary and equity, and you often can't tell if they're the right fit until 6 months in. A fractional engagement runs in weeks instead of months, at a fraction of the cost, with a clean exit if the fit is wrong. Once you actually need a full-time CTO, I can help you scope the role and hire well.
How is this different from a typical advisor?
Advisors weigh in on calls. A fractional CTO is in the room for the work — making architecture decisions, sitting on hiring panels, attending board meetings, and accountable for technical outcomes. Advisory fits when you already have technical leadership and want a sounding board; fractional CTO fits when you don't yet, and need someone to carry it.
What does an engagement actually look like?
For retainers: two days a week of deep involvement — architecture reviews, technical decisions, hiring calibration, async availability for blockers, and a weekly leadership rhythm with founders. For Architecture Reviews: three weeks of audit work delivered as a written reference architecture you keep. The shape adjusts to the engagement; the principle is the same — senior judgment at high-leverage moments, not delivery management.
Can you write code?
Yes, but I rarely should at my rate. I get involved in code for high-leverage moments only: architecture spikes, prototype validation, technical due diligence, or hiring calibration.
Do you take equity instead of cash?
No. Cash floor required for all engagements. Equity may be discussed separately in rare advisory situations, but never as a substitute for cash.
Can I talk to past clients?
Yes. After the discovery call, if we're moving toward a serious engagement, I'll arrange direct conversations with founders I've worked with. References are part of due diligence, not withheld.
Do you work with non-AI startups?
Occasionally, when the technical challenge is interesting. My specialty is AI-native, but I've also shipped distributed systems, mobile products, and search platforms, and scaled web infrastructure.
Are you available for full-time roles?
Not currently. I'm focused on a small number of fractional engagements while building my own product.
Where are you based?
Adelaide, Australia. I work remotely with clients globally, with occasional travel for kickoffs or major decision-making moments.
GET IN TOUCH
Ready to talk?
Book a Discovery Call →Have a quick question?
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© 2026 Russell Wong. Adelaide, Australia.