I’m Johnny Austin
I build and scale AI product and engineering teams that ship.
Fractional & Interim CTO | AI Delivery | PE & Growth-Stage | 20 Years
I step into CTO and VP roles at growth-stage and PE-backed companies where the AI roadmap has stalled, the engineering org has outgrown its leadership, or an exit is coming and the technology can't survive diligence.
Teams I've led generated $19.2M in revenue at Best Egg. I scaled Mapbox Navigation from $650K to $3.3M, took Till from 250K to 7M units and through acquisition, and now lead agentic AI delivery for eBay.
I've already made the expensive mistakes. You don't have to.
I’ve worked with…
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Leading delivery of Agentic-AI-powered systems that reduce return friction and prevent account takeovers, improving both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
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Head of Product & Engineering, Customer Engagement (following Till acquisition). Managed $20M budget and 200-person cross-functional organization. Teams generated $19.2M in revenue in 2024 serving 1M+ customers.
[Fintech, Consumer]
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CTO. Scaled fintech platform from 250K to 7M+ units (28x growth) while achieving SOC 2 compliance. Led technical due diligence through acquisition by Best Egg.
[Fintech, Consumer]
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Director of Engineering & Interim GM, Navigation. Pivoted product strategy, scaling revenue from $650K to $3.3M (5x growth) while leading 40-person globally distributed team.
[B2B, Developer tooling]
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VP of Engineering. Scaled release velocity 4x (one to four per week) and reduced application errors by 90%. Improved LLM accuracy from 78% to 95%. Built QA function and on-call incident response program.
[B2B SaaS, AI]
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Tech Fellows Program. Consulted on Eno AI team's engineering operations and conducted acquisition due diligence for Paribus (price-tracking fintech, 700K+ users
[Fintech, Banking, Consumer]
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As Fractional CTO, I architected Spill's Overreactions feature and AI-enabled spam detection system while scaling their platform past $1M revenue. Strategic advisor on product, UX, and performance.
[Social Media, AI, Consumer]
When to call me.
AI Delivery Assessment (3 weeks, fixed fee)
Your AI initiative has been running for months and nothing is in production. I find out why, what it's costing you, and what ships in the next 90 days. You get a board-ready memo.
Interim CTO/VP
Your leader left, or you're restructuring, or the founder-CTO has been outgrown by the company. I run engineering while you find the permanent answer.
Board & Sponsor Advisory
For investors and boards who need a technical read on a portfolio company without putting an operator in the seat.
Technical Due Diligence
Pre-acquisition, pre-exit, or bolt-on integration. Architecture, team, security posture, hidden risk. You find out what you're buying before you buy it.
“Johnny is a transformative leader who rallies A-level talent together to accomplish the right work.”
— David Sullivan, Founder & CEO at Till“He’s an inspiring people manager…he brought out the best in me and our coworkers.”
— Tarani Duncan, AI Product at IBM
“Johnny definitely played a very large role in the biggest transformation our org has ever undergone.”
— Brian Conneen, CTO at Best Egg“Please don’t hire Johnny. I’d like him to join Spill as its full-time, permanent CTO.”
— Alphonzo Terrell, Founder & CEO at Spill
Ready to talk?
Free consultation to discuss potential scope and fit
