Christopher Pike

Vertrix

Startups often struggle with balancing speed and scalability—investing too little leads to technical debt and instability, while over-investing too early wastes resources and slows momentum. I help early startups build the right engineering and data foundations to scale efficiently without unnecessary complexity. By focusing on practical, high-impact decisions, I ensure teams can move fast today while avoiding costly roadblocks tomorrow.

I help seed and Series A startups build the right technical foundation to scale efficiently without overcomplicating. With over 20 years as an engineering leader specializing in data platforms and organizational strategy, I've repeatedly guided companies through critical growth phases, most recently as VP of Data Engineering at Garner Health and previously at Tower Research and Stone Ridge. I focus on the practical decisions that let your team move quickly today while avoiding the technical debt that creates expensive roadblocks tomorrow.

My background combines deep technical expertise in modern data stacks, AWS, and microservice architectures with proven leadership experience building and scaling high-performing engineering teams. I excel as an organizational "fixer"—having transformed struggling engineering departments, established governance frameworks that actually work, and built bridges between previously siloed technical teams. This combination lets me address both the technical and people challenges that startups face as they scale.

For founders, I serve as a strategic partner who brings battle-tested insights without the overhead of a full-time executive. I help you make confident decisions about technical architecture, team structure, and engineering processes that align with your business goals. Whether you need to accelerate product delivery, prepare your infrastructure for scale, or establish the right data practices to drive growth, I provide the targeted expertise that transforms your technical organization from a constraint into a competitive advantage.

Focus

  • Align engineering strategy with business outcomes, not just technological elegance
  • Establish lightweight yet scalable data foundations that grow with your business
  • Design practical governance frameworks that enable speed without sacrificing quality
  • Transform siloed technical teams into collaborative, cross-functional units
  • Implement automation at the right time—after process-market fit is achieved
  • Balance immediate delivery needs with architectural decisions that prevent future bottlenecks

Services

Drawdown

Provide a fixed pool of hours to be used on as 'as needed' basis.

$180/hour

Hourly

Provide services on-demand.

$200/hour

Value based

Meet set objectives at a fixed rate. Retainer is negotiable based on agreed objectives.

negotiable