# Muneeb Hussain · Fractional CTO & AI Advisor > Head of Engineering running a team of 12 fullstack engineers — shipping production systems with the AI tooling everyone's still figuring out. Taking on 1–2 fractional advisor seats alongside the day job, working with founders post-seed through Series A who need a senior engineering brain a few hours a week: architecture review, AI-adoption strategy that isn't hype, hiring calibration, and unblocking the eng team when something's stuck. Not a recruiter, not a consultant pitching a team — just me, about half a day a week, on retainer. Differentiator: currently doing the job at scale, not an ex-CTO who left operating years ago. **Availability:** 1–2 fractional advisor seats open this quarter ## At a glance - **Role:** Head of Engineering at Hashone Digital (12 engineers, production AI systems) - **Offer:** Fractional CTO & AI advisor — ~half a day/week, not full-time - **Goal for clients:** Make existing engineers ~10× via AI-augmented workflows, architecture, hiring calibration, and unblocks - **Book:** [/book](https://themuneebh.com/book) · [Cal.com](https://cal.com/themuneebh/30min) - **Email:** [hello@themuneebh.com](mailto:hello@themuneebh.com) ## AI adoption (four pillars) 1. Model selection — right model for the job, not the trendiest. 2. Workflow integration — where AI fits in existing eng workflow. 3. Guardrails — boundaries, evals, cost controls. 4. Cost — token spend discipline (~$50/engineer/mo on Muneeb's team as reference). ## What I do - Architecture & technical review — codebase walkthroughs, ADR feedback, scaling decisions, build-vs-buy. - AI adoption strategy — what to automate vs. hype, model selection, where agents fail vs. one LLM call. - Eng hiring calibration — interview rubrics, sitting in senior loops, leveling debates. - Team unblocks — when the lead engineer is stuck on something an outside brain solves in 30 minutes. - Pre-launch / pre-funding technical narrative — eng story for investor deck or DD pack. ## What I won't do - Write your code — you need engineers first. - Manage your team day-to-day — that's a CTO, not an advisor. - Be your recruiter — will review candidates, not source them. - AI agent hype builds — internal automations yes, autonomous magic no. - Full-time — has a day job and is not leaving it. ## Engagements & pricing ### Monthly advisor — $800/mo A few hours a month: weekly call plus async. Senior brain on call. **Best for:** Seed → Series A with a small eng team and no senior eng leader. ### Embedded, 1 day a week — $2k/mo Hands-on inside your team, every week. **Best for:** Post-Series A with real eng problems needing weekly presence. ### Tech due diligence — $1.25k one-off Independent engineering read for investors or acquirers. **Best for:** VC / PE / acquirer due diligence. ### Architecture sprint — $2.5k one-off One hard architectural decision answered in one to two weeks. **Best for:** Founder needs a clear answer on a specific architectural call. ## Discovery call structure - 5 min — their context: stage, team size, what they're shipping, what's hard. - 10 min — the actual problem: if we worked together 90 days and fixed one thing, what would it be? - 5 min — fit / disqualify honestly. - 5 min — shape + rate: match engagement, quote number, let them respond. - 5 min — next step with a concrete date (scope doc or follow-up). ## FAQ ### Isn't AI just expensive hype right now? Expensive for teams that use it carelessly. Used well, it's the cheapest senior engineer you'll ever hire. On Muneeb's own team that's about $50 per engineer per month. Optimise for what's coming, not what's trending. ### Aren't you working full-time somewhere? Yes — that's the point. You get someone currently doing the job at scale, about half a day a week, with evenings/weekends for async and a clear response-time SLA. ### Do you take equity? Sometimes as a bonus on top of cash retainer, never instead of it. Never trade rate for cap table alone. ### What if I actually need a full-time CTO? He'll say so on the first call. Disqualifying honestly is part of the service. ### How fast can we start? Discovery call this week, one-page scope within a few days, start the following week. ### Do you build it yourself? No — brain, not hands. Makes engineers more effective. Build capacity at Hashone Digital is a separate conversation. ## Disqualification (honest fit) - Needs full-time CTO or day-to-day eng management → not a fit; recommend hiring a full-time leader. - Needs recruiter / sourcing only → not a fit. - Needs someone to write production code as primary deliverable → hire engineers first. - Wants autonomous AI agent hype builds → internal automations only; set expectations clearly. - Cannot afford cash retainer and only offers equity → usually not a fit unless exceptional cap. ## Proof points (from operating role) - Media-localization platform: ~18k hours of content processed daily - Dubbing pipelines for long-form video (hours, not five-minute caps) - AI twin systems: ~75% reduction in manual response load - Stack in production: TypeScript, Next.js, Python, FastAPI, Postgres, Bun, LLMs, MCP ## Tool fluency (not exhaustive) **Frontier models:** Anthropic, OpenAI, Perplexity, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi, MiniMax **Agents & coding:** Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Opencode, Hermes Agent, OpenClaw, Pi Coding Agent, Manus **Cloud:** Vercel, AWS, GCP, Azure ## Links - GitHub: https://github.com/muneebhashone - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/muneebhussainmodi/ - X: https://x.com/themuneebh - LLM index: [/llms.txt](https://themuneebh.com/llms.txt) ## Topic pages - [AI Adoption Advisory for Engineering Teams](https://themuneebh.com/ai-adoption-advisory) · [markdown](https://themuneebh.com/ai-adoption-advisory/ai-adoption-advisory.html.md) - [Technical Due Diligence for Investors & Acquirers](https://themuneebh.com/technical-due-diligence) · [markdown](https://themuneebh.com/technical-due-diligence/technical-due-diligence.html.md) - [Fractional CTO Advisory for Startups](https://themuneebh.com/fractional-cto-advisory) · [markdown](https://themuneebh.com/fractional-cto-advisory/fractional-cto-advisory.html.md) - [Architecture Sprint — One Hard Decision in 1–2 Weeks](https://themuneebh.com/architecture-sprint) · [markdown](https://themuneebh.com/architecture-sprint/architecture-sprint.html.md) --- Last updated: 2026-05-26. Machine-readable index: [`/llms.txt`](https://themuneebh.com/llms.txt). HTML version: [https://themuneebh.com/](https://themuneebh.com/).