Daniel Engelhardt

Daniel Engelhardt · Interim CTO & AI Transformation

Engineering leadership and AI transformation, when you need it.

I help companies ship faster and become genuinely AI-native - from hands-on engineering leadership to full team transformation.

No account managers, no bench of consultants - you work directly with me.

Get in touch View services

15+

Years in tech

~30%

Faster delivery

0 → 7

Team built

~1 Mio.€

ARR grown from 0 to ~1 Mio.€

Daniel Engelhardt

About

Daniel Engelhardt

Interim CTO · AI Transformation · Düsseldorf

I am a technical co-founder and engineering leader with more than 15 years in tech - from hands-on IT infrastructure and sysadmin work, through product management, to CTO roles in startups. I still write code. I like staying close to the work, helping teams take more ownership, and shipping quickly without breaking things.

Most recently at Evolute I took the whole company from manual development to an AI-first way of working - cutting delivery time by about 30%. That shift is now what I help other companies do.

Available for new engagements

Services

Four ways I can help

Interim / Fractional CTO

Experienced CTO leadership without the full-time hire. I step in to stabilise, structure and scale your engineering - from day one.

  • Engineering team setup, hiring and mentoring
  • Architecture, delivery process and CI/CD
  • Roadmap alignment with product and management
  • Hands-on: I still write code

AI Consultancy

Practical guidance on where AI actually helps. I cut through the hype and help you pick the right tools, integrate LLMs, and stay GDPR-compliant.

  • LLM/GPT integration into your product
  • Self-hosted model deployment on EU infrastructure
  • AI tooling selection (Cursor, Claude Code, agents)
  • GDPR-compliant AI architecture

AI Transformation

I take engineering teams from fully manual to genuinely AI-native - not by mandate, but by building a real enablement culture.

  • AI-first development workflow and tooling
  • Automated AI code reviews and quality gates
  • Enablement culture: AI Fridays, knowledge sessions
  • Measurable output: ~30% faster delivery achieved

Vibe Code Hardening

You (or your team) shipped a working prototype with Cursor, Lovable, Bolt or v0. Now it needs to survive real users, real load and real attacks. I turn AI-generated prototypes into secure, scalable products - without a rewrite from scratch.

  • Security, architecture and code-quality review
  • Refactoring for scale, tests and maintainability
  • Production-grade CI/CD, monitoring and deployment
  • Hand-off docs or ongoing support for your team

How I work

Hands-on from day one

01

Understand

I start by getting close to the work - the codebase, the team, the delivery flow. No assumptions, no generic playbooks.

02

Assess & Prioritise

I identify what is actually blocking delivery and where the highest leverage is. Clear priorities, no noise.

03

Enable & Build

I work alongside the team - writing code, setting up systems, introducing AI tooling - to build capability, not dependency.

04

Ship & Sustain

Predictable releases, stable infrastructure, a team that owns its work. I leave things better than I found them.

Tech Stack

What I actually work with

AI & LLM

Cursor IDE Claude Code Cursor Cloud Agents Automated AI code review (CodeRabbit, Cursor Bug Bot) Self-hosted models on Azure Agentic workflows

Product & Process

Continuous discovery Opportunity-driven prioritisation Scrum Linear Jira PostHog A/B testing User research

Engineering

TypeScript Node.js React React Native Next.js TanStack Start TanStack Query TanStack AI Express SQL PostgreSQL MongoDB Firebase Supabase REST APIs Jest

Platform & DevOps

Docker Kubernetes Azure Google Cloud AWS CI/CD GitLab CI E2E & integration testing GDPR / compliance

Journey

From sysadmin to AI-native CTO

2002 - 2009

IT Engineer & Apprenticeship

Hornbach Baumarkt AG

Apprenticeship as an IT specialist, systems development and Windows administration. The technical foundation for everything that followed.

2017 - 2019

From Business Development to CTO

Capital Pioneers

Started as Business Development Manager, rose to CTO and executive board member with signing authority. Built my first engineering team, introduced Scrum and CI.

2019 - 2021

Co-founder & CTO/CPO

keepist

Built a SaaS product from zero. Fully owned architecture, development, DevOps and infrastructure on Docker, Kubernetes and Google Cloud.

2022 - 2026

Co-founder & CTO/CPO/EM - 0 to 7, AI-native

Evolute

Built the team from zero to seven, grew ARR from 0 to ~1M €, supported two funding rounds - and shifted the whole company to AI-native development: ~30% faster delivery.

2026 - present

Interim CTO & AI Transformation

ed.solutions

Now passing that experience on to other companies - as Interim/Fractional CTO and AI transformation advisor.

Results

Outcomes that matter

~30%

Faster delivery after AI transformation

~1 Mio.

ARR grown from 0 to ~1 Mio.

1.2M €

Funding rounds supported

0 → 7

Engineering team built from scratch

Evolute (2022 - 2026)

Took the product from MVP to a reliable B2B SaaS for manufacturing. Built and led the team from zero to seven, grew ARR from 0 to ~1 Mio., supported two funding rounds, and led the full shift to AI-native development - cutting delivery time by ~30%.

Read the full case study →

Assessory (ongoing)

Built and launched an AI tool for engineering hiring - multi-layer pipeline (syntax-tree parsing across 30+ languages, static security analysis, contextual AI review), GDPR-compliant on EU infrastructure. Live and in use.

Contact

Let's talk

Got a challenge that needs engineering leadership or an AI push? Drop me a message.

Send an email

Location

Düsseldorf, Germany