BUILD BETTER.
SHIP FASTER.
Senior product engineering for founders and growing teams — either as your embedded tech lead, or as the team that builds your product end to end. AI-assisted workflow tools and SaaS products that save your business real hours every week, without the overhead of a traditional agency.
Your product has outgrown the way you're building it.
The idea is good. The team is busy. The roadmap keeps moving. But shipping is harder than it should be.
ZELN brings product thinking, engineering depth and delivery leadership together to get you from "we should build this" to "it's live."
No $100k agency retainer. No hand-off between strategy and delivery. Just senior ownership of the work that matters, at a fraction of the overhead.
Two ways to work with us.
Pick the engagement that fits — embedded technical leadership, or a full product build delivered end to end. Not sure which? Start with an audit.
TECH LEAD_
Embedded technical & product leadership.
We slot in as your fractional tech lead — owning architecture, delivery and the product roadmap alongside your team. Not just code review from the sidelines: real decisions, real ownership, product and delivery woven in from day one.
- Fractional technical leadership
- Product & delivery planning, combined
- Architecture & technical direction
- Team organisation & process improvement
- Mentoring, hiring & technical assessment
- AI / automation strategy
Good for: Teams with engineers but no senior technical owner.
Start a TECH LEAD conversation ↗BUILD_
End-to-end product delivery.
A full build, delivered by a senior-led team — not a 40-person agency with account managers and a six-month onboarding process. We lead every engagement personally and bring in trusted specialists when a build needs more hands, so you get real delivery capacity without the overhead of a traditional agency retainer.
- AI-assisted workflow & automation tools
- SaaS product builds, idea to paying customers
- Product discovery & technical definition
- Web & mobile application development
- API, backend & integrations
- Testing, CI/CD & production launch
Good for: Teams with no engineers, or who need to move faster than their team can build.
See how BUILD works ↗Not sure which fits, or just want a second opinion? An AUDIT is a clear, outside review of your product, engineering and AI opportunities — with a prioritised plan, not a report that gathers dust.
Ask about an audit →
FROM IDEA
TO PRODUCTION.
Fast doesn't have to mean fragile. We keep scope tight, decisions clear and engineering standards high.
DISCOVER
Understand the user, business goal and constraints. Challenge assumptions before code.
DEFINE
Turn the problem into a focused product scope, technical approach and delivery plan we agree on together.
BUILD
Design and engineer the product with one senior lead, bringing in trusted specialists when the build needs more hands. Weekly demos and direct access — no disappearing into a dark room for months.
SHIP
Deploy, instrument and launch. Then stick around to monitor performance, squash bugs and iterate on real user feedback.
Projects are scoped around outcomes, not arbitrary day counts. Pricing is shaped by complexity, scope and the seniority required.
Things I've
built.
A sample of the products, teams and outcomes behind ZELN. Problem, approach, result.
Global fitness platform
Led development of a web platform serving thousands of users daily — calendar scheduling, video playback, favourited content, community management and subscription billing.
Project management SaaS
A high-growth project-management SaaS product with real-time collaboration, document management, notifications, public sharing and a form builder.
Scaled engineering team
Built and scaled a high-performance engineering team across multiple products, fostering a culture of trust and autonomy focused on delivery.
For teams that
need momentum.
✓ Founder-led or growing software businesses
✓ Small product & engineering teams
✓ New products, major features or stalled roadmaps
✓ Teams that need senior ownership, not more tickets completed
✓ Businesses that want AI/automation done properly, not bolted on
✓ Anyone who wants agency-level delivery without agency-level overhead
Senior enough to lead.
Hands-on enough to build.
10+ years building and scaling SaaS products across healthtech, edtech, B2B and B2C — from hands-on engineering through technical leadership.
I work where product, engineering and people overlap. That means I can zoom into the code, zoom out to the roadmap, and keep the team moving between the two.
Every engagement is led by me, personally — no handing you off to a junior once the contract's signed. For full BUILD projects I bring in trusted specialists as needed, so you get the capacity of a team without the overhead of a traditional agency.