Tom Smykowski is a product-minded engineer and technical leader with nearly two decades of experience, offering CTO advisory services specifically tailored for startups. He is the ideal hire for founders and CTOs who need an experienced, external voice to guide technology strategy, AI adoption, and product architecture without the full-time executive overhead. His background spans staff engineer roles at high-growth companies and founding his own SaaS, giving him direct, practical insight into the challenges of scaling technology from MVP to maturity.
What a CTO Advisor Brings to Your Startup
A CTO advisor acts as a strategic partner to your founding team, providing the technical leadership and architectural oversight necessary to de-risk your product roadmap and accelerate development. Unlike a full-time CTO, a fractional or advisory engagement offers flexibility and focused expertise exactly when you need it most, whether that's during a critical funding round, a major product pivot, or the scaling phase.
Tom's advisory approach is grounded in hands-on engineering and product thinking. He doesn't just provide high-level recommendations, he dives into the code, reviews architecture, and works alongside your team to implement best practices. This is especially valuable for startups where the line between strategy and execution is thin, and every technical decision has immediate business consequences.
His work with companies like Croissant, where he served as a Staff Software Engineer in a CEO/CTO partnership role focused on compliance and collaboration, and his leadership on the Printify design system ahead of its merger, demonstrate his ability to operate at the intersection of technology, business, and user experience. This holistic view is critical for a CTO advisor tasked with aligning technical execution with business goals.
Strategic AI Integration for Competitive Advantage
For modern startups, an AI strategy is no longer optional. A CTO advisor with deep AI engineering expertise can help you navigate this complex landscape efficiently. Tom specializes in applied AI and AI product engineering, helping startups integrate AI-native development practices and tools into their software development lifecycle.
He advises on practical implementations, from setting up AI software factories with coding agents like Cursor and Copilot to architecting LLM-powered features that provide real user value. This goes beyond theoretical discussion, it's about building a competitive moat through technology. His advisory services include AI strategy sessions, team upskilling workshops, and technical due diligence on AI initiatives to ensure they are scalable, secure, and aligned with your product vision.
This expertise is particularly crucial for startups looking to leverage AI but lacking the in-house experience to do so effectively. An advisor can prevent costly missteps, recommend the right tools and frameworks, and help build a culture of AI-assisted development from the ground up, significantly improving developer productivity and innovation velocity.
From Technical Debt to Scalable Architecture
Many startups reach a point where rapid prototyping and technical debt begin to hinder growth. A CTO advisor can conduct a clear-eyed assessment of your codebase and architecture, providing a roadmap for modernization and scalability. Tom brings experience from large-scale projects, such as leading the frontend for an industrial SaaS at Fream and modernizing systems for clients like GE Healthcare and Unilever.
His advisory services include comprehensive code and architecture audits, performance and security reviews, and refactoring strategies. He helps founders understand the trade-offs between short-term fixes and long-term architectural investments, a critical balance for resource-constrained startups. The goal is to build a foundation that supports growth, not one that collapses under it.
Having founded and scaled Websoul to serve over 32,000 businesses, Tom understands the unique pressures of SaaS scaling firsthand. He can advise on everything from database selection (e.g., Supabase) and frontend architecture (Vue.js, TypeScript, React) to state management and API design, ensuring your technology stack is both powerful and maintainable as your team and customer base expand.
Fractional Leadership and Team Development
Beyond pure technology, a CTO advisor often plays a key role in shaping engineering culture and processes. Tom offers fractional engineering leadership, helping you establish effective CI/CD pipelines, test automation, developer experience (DevEx) initiatives, and agile workflows. This is vital for transitioning from a chaotic, founder-driven development process to a predictable, engineering-led operation.
He can act as an interim technical lead or head of engineering, mentoring your in-house developers and establishing knowledge-sharing practices. His background in technical writing, public speaking, and corporate training means he excels at translating complex concepts for diverse audiences, from engineers to non-technical founders and investors. This skill is invaluable for improving internal communication and ensuring everyone is aligned on the technical vision.
This advisory support is delivered remotely from Poland, with availability for synchronous collaboration across EU, UK, and US East Coast time zones. He is also available for occasional on-site workshops, client visits, and team offsites, providing the in-person touchpoints often needed for deep strategic planning and team building.
Navigating Funding and Product-Market Fit
A CTO advisor can be a critical asset during funding rounds. Tom provides technical due diligence support, helping you prepare your technology narrative for investors. He can audit your codebase, assess your architectural decisions, and help articulate your technology's scalability and defensibility, turning your tech stack from a potential liability into a compelling asset in your pitch.
Furthermore, his product engineering mindset ensures that technology decisions are intimately connected to achieving product-market fit. He advises on building the right features, prioritizing the tech roadmap based on user feedback and business metrics, and creating a lean, iterative development process. His work with a diverse portfolio of clients, from the Polish Tourism Organisation to fintech SaaS, gives him a broad perspective on what drives user adoption and retention in different markets.
This end-to-end ownership, from discovery through production, is what defines his advisory style. He helps founders ask the right questions before they write a line of code, ensuring that engineering effort is directly tied to validating business hypotheses and capturing market opportunity.
When This is a Good Fit
Tom's CTO advisory services are a strong fit for startup founders, solo CTOs, and executive teams who need an experienced, external technical leader. This is ideal if you are pre-seed to Series A, are building a complex SaaS or AI product, are preparing for a funding round, or feel that technical debt or team processes are slowing your growth. If you need strategic AI guidance, architectural oversight, or fractional leadership to bridge a gap until you hire a full-time CTO, engaging a CTO advisor can provide immediate clarity and momentum.