Michael Chen

Former VP of Engineering at Stripe (2016-2022) where I built and scaled the payments infrastructure team from 12 to 150+ engineers. I help early-stage founders make the right technical decisions without over-engineering or burning through runway too quickly. My focus is on: - Technical architecture and infrastructure - Building and scaling engineering teams - Security and compliance (SOC2, PCI, GDPR) - Developer experience and tooling - Technical hiring and team culture I work best with founders who are technical but need someone with scale-up experience. I typically spend 15-20 hours per week with 2-3 companies at a time. Ideal for seed to Series B companies building developer tools, fintech, or B2B SaaS platforms.