Accelerate Your Product.
Transform Your Team.
Partnering with startups and scale-ups to solve complex product and engineering challenges.
"Ben is the ideal tech leader if you're looking to get something off the ground. He takes the time to use the product and truly understand the user's motivation, allowing him to intuitively know where to cut corners for speed and where such shortcuts would come back to haunt us."

Chase Croft
Head of Product
Companies I've worked with
Products
How I Deliver Results
Technical Leadership & Strategy
Hands-on technical leadership shaped by 15 years building products for startups and enterprises. I’ve led architecture and technology strategy for platforms at Clerk, Letter, and WorkMade, making pragmatic decisions on stack (Go, Node.js, React, AWS, GCP) and system design. I specialize in technical due diligence, backend/API design, and balancing speed with long-term maintainability—helping teams ship faster without accruing crippling tech debt.
- Technical due diligence & audits (Go, Node.js, React, AWS, GCP)
- System architecture, API & data modeling
- Technology stack selection for scale and maintainability
- Scaling, modernization & technical debt management
Team Building & Mentorship
Built and led remote teams (up to 6+ engineers) across time zones at Letter, WorkMade, and GoDaddy. I focus on hiring, mentoring, and creating a culture of ownership, learning, and delivery. Experienced in running performance reviews, coaching, and supporting engineers’ growth. I’ve run workshops, onboarded teams to new stacks, and improved developer experience with better tooling and process.
- Team structure, hiring & onboarding (remote/async)
- Performance reviews, coaching & mentorship
- Developer experience: tooling, codebase modernization, process improvement
- Workshops, training & technical writing
Product Development & Delivery
Led full product lifecycles from MVP to scale at Letter, WorkMade, and Clerk. I work closely with founders, product, and design to translate business needs into technical solutions. Experienced in rapid prototyping, feature planning, and aligning engineering with product goals. I’ve shipped production systems in regulated industries (fintech, e-commerce), always with a focus on quality, security, and user experience.
- MVP & feature planning, rapid prototyping
- Product/engineering alignment & cross-functional collaboration
- Quality assurance, code review, and best practices
- Shipping, go-to-market, and post-launch support
Infrastructure, DevOps & Operations
Designed and operated cloud infrastructure for high-growth products (AWS, GCP, PostgreSQL, MySQL, DynamoDB). Automated deployments, built CI/CD pipelines, and implemented monitoring and security best practices. Experienced in cost optimization, compliance, and scaling systems to handle millions of users and requests (e.g., ReqRes, Clerk Commerce).
- Cloud architecture (AWS, GCP), database design (PostgreSQL, MySQL, DynamoDB)
- CI/CD, automation, and developer workflow
- Security, compliance, and operational excellence
- Performance, monitoring, and cost optimization
Letting Go of Perfectionism in Distributed Systems
Let's dive deep into the principles and mental models developers use when shaping large software systems. We'll explore system design, building functionality awareness, anticipating bugs, managing tech debt, and reassessing our quest for perfection. Drawing inspiration from what went wrong in Jurassic Park, we’ll discuss Ian Malcolm's Chaos Theory, as portrayed in the movie. We'll discuss how overlooked issues can disrupt complex systems. Just as Dennis Nedry's betrayal was unexpected, we face software bugs. Emphasizing the need for resilience and flexibility in our systems, we aim for effective damage control and graceful error handling for when failures strike. Hold onto your butts!
Track Record
Key contributor to Clerk’s Commerce platform, leading the design and implementation of core backend billing infrastructure. Enabled rapid product launches and improved cross-team collaboration, exemplifying technical strategy and product development at scale.
Oversaw the full software development cycle, from team management and hiring to technical architecture and infrastructure. Delivered a secure, automated tax categorization and payment system, supporting business growth and operational excellence.
“Ben was an exceptional CTO and a true partner in the chaos of startup life. At WorkMade, we took on massive projects with ambitious timelines, and Ben had the rare ability to turn an idea from concept yesterday to a working build in production today. He knew exactly where to focus our energy for the biggest impact, operated with incredible agility, and made thoughtful trade-offs without ever compromising quality and security. Without needing to be asked. Beyond his technical skill, Ben was an incredible teammate and communicator. He knew how to adapt his style to whoever he was working with (whether it was breaking things down for a non-technical teammate or deep-diving with an engineer) so everyone felt aligned and heard. Working with Ben felt like having both a strategic visionary and a hands-on builder in one. Any founder/team would be lucky to have him in their corner.”

Nick Simpson
Founder, WorkMade
“Ben is a fantastic engineer, CTO, and manager. I had the privilege of working as an engineer with Ben for six months and learned an incredible amount. Ben has a keen mind for evaluating and making responsible eng tradeoffs to balance speed with stability and reliability which is invaluable in a startup environment. He also is a very efficient engineer and consistently shipped quality code quickly. During his time at WorkMade, Ben was responsible for spearheading several efforts to make our monitoring and deployment infrastructure more robust while simultaneously writing code to ship new features. As a manager Ben does a great job of mentoring his reports and making time to work with them to answer questions, explain things, and generally improve their skills, but also provide them enough time and space to figure things out on their own. It was a real pleasure to get to work with him and he would be an invaluable member to any eng team.”

Anya Hargil
Engineer, WorkMade
Architected and built the Letter platform from the ground up, leading a team to deliver features aligned with business needs. Fostered a strong engineering culture and delivered a robust, scalable product.
Integrated new products into GoDaddy’s suite post-acquisition, working on infrastructure, architecture, and Node.js implementation. Enabled seamless product launches and improved system reliability.
Consulted on the launch of a React Native e-commerce app, training and guiding engineers to ensure a successful rollout and maintainable codebase.
“At Mytheresa Ben was paramount in crafting the architectural foundations of a React Native application, while also training and guiding the other engineers. He is a stellar developer, but in my eyes his collaborative and thorough approach make him a real stand-out.”

Phillip Barthold
mytheresa
Worked with Plasso on their e-commerce platform for 6 months, mostly using Node.js on the backend. We used GraphQL and Relay (part of Facebook's open source stack) to interface between the backend Node.js data layer and front-end React.
Helped launch a new site for The Ned and built internal tools to streamline development. Delivered consistent, maintainable code and improved team efficiency with custom CLI tooling.
Architected and built a real-time React front-end for Cisco’s automation platform, collaborating closely with internal teams. Delivered robust, scalable solutions and later implemented automated testing frameworks to ensure long-term code quality.
Advised and implemented a new front-end architecture, helping Kayako transition to a modern, API-driven approach that improved scalability and maintainability.
“Ben was able to apply his front-end development and architecture experience from day one, helping us come up with and validate key architecture choices and avoid costly mistakes as we scale Kayako to be used by 10,000s organisations worldwide to support millions of end users. We found Ben's advice to be realistic and pragmatic, factoring in resource constraints, business needs of the day and balancing those with future scalability benefits. We are relieved to have had Ben part of our design process - his early contributions have saved a potentially limitless amount of developer time, pain and costs down the line.”

Jamie Edwards
CEO, Kayako
Led the architecture and implementation of a new UI for KashFlow’s accounting software, contributing to the company’s successful acquisition.
“I hired Ben to lead the redevelopment of our SaaS application from crusty old code into something more modern. He made suggestions - along with pro's and con's - that helped us decide which way to go. We ultimately went with his recommendations. I quickly came to depend on Ben's knowledge and expertise on all aspects of the development of our Backbone.js app. His wider experience with other aspects of product architecture, such as REST APIs and CSS was also invaluable. Unlike your stereotypical uber-techie, he's also very personable and everyone enjoyed working with him. I've come to regard him as the foremost expert in his field.”

Duane Jackson
Founder, KashFlow
Built ReqRes to streamline API and UI testing for developers. The platform now processes over 150 million requests monthly, demonstrating my ability to deliver high-impact, scalable developer tools.
“We worked with Ben on a tricky React-based medical app, where we needed to cover a lot of ground efficiently, with a small team. Ben was a pleasure to work with - fast, effective and a great communicator, delivering on time and delivering exactly as promised. Particularly valuable was his ability to help us implement best practices, sensible technical architecture and a testing framework that helped ensure that code quality remained high even after his involvement on the project ended and the codebase transitioned to being owned and maintained by another team. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to others looking for the same!”

Jon Lay
Founder, Hanno
“Ben built us responsive front-end framework that minimised maintenance and increased developer efficiency. He was able to quickly understand our needs and provide us with the building blocks we needed to scale our front-end.”

Tom Alterman
Product Manager
“Organising and running ng-workshop with Ben was a great experience. He is an excellent teacher and more than willing to share his knowledge building and scaling web applications. He covered everything from basic JavaScript concepts to high-level architecture and best practices, and made sure everyone is at the same level by the end of the day. We received very positive feedback from all attendees after the event. I don't think the workshop would have been such a success without Ben.”

Svilen Gospodinov
ng-workshop co-organizer
“Ben's Javascript for Beginners workshop was extremely useful. He covered the fundamentals of Javascript in one day and I've come out of it with the knowledge and confidence to write pure Javascript when I code. The workshop was in a small group, so it was easy to chat, and he is very approachable which meant I wasn't afraid to ask questions. The topics were interactive and dynamic and definitely grows your appetite to code and learn more. I'd recommend this workshop for anyone stuck in learning JavaScript.”

Pui-Ling Lau
Workshop attendee
Let's connect
Email hello@benhowdle.im or connect on Github and LinkedIn.