Independent technical advice
Independent technical advice for CTOs and founders.
I assess complex platforms, establish technical direction and help engineering teams improve how they deliver. I combine technology leadership with practical engineering, grounding recommendations in the systems, constraints and people involved.
Where a critical assumption needs evidence, I investigate and test it.
Joe KeeneCTO and Director of Engineering experience. Principal Engineer engagements at GSK and the Financial Times.
Independent judgement, practical help
I take responsibility for the agreed technical assessment, recommendation and validation. I work alongside your team so they understand the decisions and can take the work forward.
You need to connect systems, modernise a platform or decide what to retain and replace.
I assess the existing architecture, dependencies and constraints, compare the credible options and recommend a practical way forward.
Delivery is slow or inconsistent, or the team needs a more effective way to use AI.
I investigate what is holding delivery back, strengthen development and release practices, and coach engineers through improvements tested on real work.
You have a promising AI idea, but need to establish whether and how it will work in practice.
I assess the workflow and data, define what success should look like and test important technical assumptions through a focused prototype where agreed.
Experience
Experience from previous leadership roles and consulting engagements.
Director of Engineering
Reworked AWS architecture with a DevOps engineer, strengthened development and release practices and introduced AI into engineering workflows. Led a team of six engineers and QA specialists and delivered the agreed September 2026 roadmap.
Chief Technology Officer
Led technology strategy, architecture and product delivery for a robotics startup. Designed and built a component compatibility engine using graph modelling, with supporting cloud services and a visual interface.
Principal Engineer
Built data ingestion workflows using AI agents to structure scientific datasets for an internal research platform. Designed reusable skills that enabled the research assistant to work with newly ingested datasets.
Principal Engineer
Designed and delivered AWS middleware connecting Salesforce and Oracle across sales, invoicing and reconciliation. Validated sales data before passing it to Oracle for invoicing, then synchronised invoice details back to Salesforce.
Further selected engineering work: Jisc, defining architecture and technical direction for a Higher Education Statistics Agency platform; and Complete Cyber, designing AWS data pipelines and Neo4j models for cybersecurity telemetry.
How engagements work
A focused Technical Direction Sprint is one way to start. Separately scoped validation or defined advisory support may be a better fit for the question and your team.
A focused technical diagnostic
For one important technical question, I review the relevant systems and credible options, then give your team a recommendation, rationale, risks and practical next steps.
A Technical Direction Pack covering the recommendation, key decisions, tradeoffs, risks and implementation sequence. A 60 to 90 minute walkthrough gives your team space to question the approach.
Failed or uncertain result: retry safely or review for reconciliation.
One product, platform or system area, with a framing session and up to three technical discussions.
Subject to agreed access and availability.
After the walkthrough. Not ongoing support.
The process
Standard Technical Direction Sprint: £4,500 plus VAT
For one clearly defined technical decision. We confirm the scope together before you commit.
Payment is made before the engagement starts.
About Joe
I’m Joe, based in Bath. I have more than 14 years of software engineering and technology leadership experience. I established Keene Development in 2016.
I bring strategic judgement and practical engineering to architecture, delivery and applied AI decisions. I stay close enough to the technical work to recommend an approach your team can use.
More about my experience on LinkedInPractical details
Advisory can provide defined technical input alongside your team. Ongoing engineering management and programme ownership are not included unless separately agreed.
We’ll discuss the outcome you need, the technical situation and what you’ve already tried. If there’s a fit, I’ll recommend an appropriate scope and explain how we could work together.
The £4,500 plus VAT fee covers one clearly defined technical decision. Broader engineering coaching, practical validation, prototype work, production implementation and ongoing support are separately agreed. A Spike or Proof of Concept and Advisory are individually scoped formats.
We agree the relevant systems, material and people before starting. Access is kept to what is needed, preferably read only. Start dates are agreed around existing commitments; a typical Sprint spans one to two weeks elapsed, not full time availability.
Contact Joe
Tell me about the technical challenge, the outcome you need and what you’ve already tried. A few sentences are enough to start a conversation.
joe@keene.devPrefer a simple email? That works too.
Please don’t include credentials or confidential client data.