Ilzam
Fractional CTO
Muhammad Ilzam Mulkhaq - AI-Native Software Engineer & Fractional CTO for Early-Stage Founders
Your startup needs a CTO.
You don't need a $200k salary
I work as an AI-native software engineer and fractional CTO for early-stage founders. I make the technical decisions, build the product, and help you ship - so you can focus on customers, not code.
How I take you from
idea to shipped product
Understand the Problem
Before touching any code, I ask the question most developers skip: 'Why are we building this?' I dig into your business goals, user needs, and constraints. This is where 80% of bad technical decisions get prevented.
Make the Hard Calls
Stack selection. Build vs buy. Monolith vs microservices. I make these decisions with you based on your stage, budget, and timeline - not based on what's trendy. I've seen what works at startup scale and what becomes technical debt by month six.
Ship It
I build with AI-assisted development - moving at 2-3x the speed of a traditional agency while writing production-quality code. Go, React, TypeScript, PostgreSQL. You get weekly updates, working demos, and zero surprises.
Measure and Improve
Launch isn't the finish line. I set up monitoring, review real user data, and help you prioritize what to build next. The goal is a product that works in production - not just in a demo.
Every product starts as an idea. Not every idea ships. These did.
Most details are under NDA. Here's what I can share.
15+ MVPs Shipped
Products built and deployed across marketplaces, SaaS, AI, and government systems.
80% Cost Reduction
Infrastructure cost savings delivered for a healthcare network.
99% Uptime
Platform reliability achieved after rebuilding a system serving 5,000+ users.
Working on something that could be the next case study? Book a call
What I Build With
*
I pick the right tool for the job, not the trendiest one. Go for performance-critical backends. React for interactive frontends. PostgreSQL for data that matters.
Event-driven architectures, microservices, REST APIs, RAG pipelines - the infrastructure that makes products work at scale.
Three ways to work with me
Whether you need ongoing CTO-level support, a product built from scratch, a one-time technical gut check, or something custom - there's a clear path.
Questions founders usually ask
Ready to build
something?
Book a free 30-minute intro call. No pitch, no pressure - just a real conversation about what you're building and whether I can help.