Rajendra Kumar · Available now

Your technical co-founder, without the equity.

Hire the right developers. Build the right architecture. Catch the mistakes that burn runway — with a technical co-founder who explains every decision so you can actually lead.

Book a free 30-min call See what I deliver

No pitch · No pressure · Clarity in 30 minutes

rajendracto.com / plain-english

// What I actually do for you

Live

What they said

microservices architecture

What you hear

Should we build this as one app or many? Here's what's right for your stage.

Hiring screens

On call

Architecture

Scoped

AI agents

Shipping

Does this sound familiar?

The conversations I have
every single week.

You're not bad at business. You just don't have a technical partner who speaks both languages — founder and developer.

01Code audit

I paid a developer $8,000 and got code nobody else can understand.

I audit what you have, give you a health report, and a clear path forward.

02Hiring

I don't know if I need a frontend dev, a backend engineer, or a 'tech lead'.

I write your hiring blueprint — exact role, skills to test for, red flags to screen out.

03Delivery

My app has been 'almost done' for four months.

I diagnose the real bottleneck — people, process, or architecture — and fix it.

04Translation

My developer says it's complicated. I don't know who to believe.

I translate. I sit between you and your team so you're never left out of the room.

05Scoping

I've been quoted anywhere from $5k to $80k for the same feature.

I scope it properly, give you a realistic number, and tell you which quotes are fair.

06AI strategy

Everyone says I need AI in my product. I don't know where to start.

I show you exactly where AI adds real value vs. where it's hype — and I can build the proof of concept.

What I deliver

Five ways I make your technical side solid.

Not slide decks. Not vague advice. Every engagement ends with something you can hand to your team, your investors, or your next hire.

Tech Blueprint

Strategy

Architecture, stack recommendation, database schema, infra plan, and 90-day roadmap — a complete technical plan for your product.

Architecture doc · Stack pick · 90-day roadmap

Hiring Guidance

Hiring

Who to hire, how to test them, what questions to ask, and which red flags to walk away from. I'll join your developer interviews.

Role spec · Interview kit · Red flag list

Code & Bug Audit

Audit

A health report on your existing codebase — what's solid, what's risky, what should be rewritten, and what's costing you performance.

Health report · Risk register · Fix priority list

Ongoing Advisory

Advisory

Monthly retainer. Your on-call technical brain — advisory calls, async questions, code reviews, and interview support when you need me.

4 calls / month · Slack access · Code reviews

Part-Time Job Support

Job support

Senior backup for candidates stuck on real job work — plus part-time engineering for companies, 3–4 hours a day: features, AI agents, reviews, and delivery.

Candidate unblock · 3–4 hrs / day · AI & full-stack

Learn more →

Simple pricing

Start with a conversation.
Scale as you need.

No retainer lock-in on the first engagement. Try a Blueprint, see the quality, then decide.

Starter

$299

one-time

For founders who need a clear plan before hiring anyone or writing a single line of code.

✓1 tech strategy session (90 min)
✓Full Tech Blueprint document
✓Stack & architecture recommendation
✓Hiring checklist for your first role
✓Risk register

Get started

7 things a bad developer says in an interview.

These are the signals I screen for on your behalf — things most non-technical founders would never catch until it's too late.

CriticalWalk away

WrongMajor concern

CautionDig deeper

Interview candidate

Senior developer · 6 yrs exp.

Critical

What they said

I work best without documentation.

My verdict

You'll be locked in when they leave. Good developers document because they know they won't be there forever.

Interview candidate

Full-stack · Agency background

Wrong

What they said

I can't explain my last project in simple terms.

My verdict

Ask them to describe what they built as if you're not technical. If they can't, they may not understand it themselves — or they're hiding behind complexity.

Interview candidate

Backend engineer · Freelance

Wrong

What they said

I don't need to ask questions about your business.

My verdict

A strong hire wants to know who uses the product, what growth looks like, and what "done" means. Stack-only questions mean they'll build for their CV, not your company.

Interview candidate

Tech lead · Startup veteran

Caution

What they said

I'll need to rewrite everything from scratch.

My verdict

Sometimes true. Usually ego. Ask what specifically they'd rewrite and why. Vague answers often mean they just want a greenfield project.

Interview candidate

Mid-level dev · Remote

Critical

What they said

I won't do a paid take-home task.

My verdict

Always pay for take-home work ($100–200 for ~3 hours). Strong developers take it seriously. Refusal often signals something to hide about real output.

Interview candidate

Contractor · Offshore team

Critical

What they said

I can build your full SaaS for $3,000 — no scoping needed.

My verdict

Real estimates require real scoping. A lowball quote without questions usually grows 3× after you've committed.

Interview candidate

Solo freelancer · 4 yrs exp.

Critical

What they said

I push directly to production — no branches needed.

My verdict

Hard stop. Anyone who skips Git branches and deploys straight to production is one typo away from taking your product offline.

About

Rajendra Kumar

Fractional CTO · AI Agent Engineer

Fractional CTO and full-stack engineer — 10+ years in the codebase, now helping founders ship with confidence.

Available for new clients·Remote · Worldwide

10+

Years building

Equity taken

1yr

Daily AI focus

Founders max

2014 → now

Background

Full-stack engineer shipping production products — database design, backend systems, cloud deployment, and CI/CD automation.

Today

AI agents

Building agents that do real work: booking assistants, internal automation, and AI features from demo to production with OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini.

With you

How I help

Helping founders make confident technical decisions, hire the right developers, and avoid costly mistakes — with clarity you can act on immediately.

Stack I work in daily

Vue.js · Laravel · Next.js · PostgreSQL · MySQL · AWS · CI/CD · Claude API · OpenAI

From the blog

2 articles

Technical blogs on architecture, AI, and shipping.

Engineering notes from real production work — how systems are built, where they break, and what I'd do differently next time.

FeaturedWhat we built5 min read

We replaced a manual dispatch process with an AI that books itself

A field services company was dispatching every repair call by hand. We built an agent that clusters slots by geography, retrieves HVAC context with RAG, and escalates urgency — intake to tech assignment, no human in the loop.

Read article

Engineering

11 min read

We Built a Chatbot That Actually Books the Appointment

Most booking chatbots stop at FAQ. Ours closes the loop — real answers, a confirmed appointment, and payment, all inside the same chat window.

Read

Read all articles

Ready to stop guessing?

Book a free 30-minute call.
Walk away with clarity.

No pitch. No pressure. I'll look at your situation and tell you exactly what I see. If I can help, I'll explain how. If you don't need me, I'll tell you that too.

Book your free call

No commitment · Held on Google Meet or Zoom · Reply within 24hrs

Your technical co-founder, without the equity.

The conversations I haveevery single week.

Five ways I make your technical side solid.

Tech Blueprint

Hiring Guidance

Code & Bug Audit

Ongoing Advisory

Part-Time Job Support

Start with a conversation.Scale as you need.

7 things a bad developer says in an interview.

Rajendra Kumar

Technical blogs on architecture, AI, and shipping.

We replaced a manual dispatch process with an AI that books itself

We Built a Chatbot That Actually Books the Appointment

Book a free 30-minute call.Walk away with clarity.

The conversations I have
every single week.

Start with a conversation.
Scale as you need.

Book a free 30-minute call.
Walk away with clarity.