Zach Smith: CTO, Product Leader & Applied-AI Engineer
I work across product, engineering, and operations, from strategy to implementation: sharper product decisions, faster delivery, less manual work, and applied AI that pays off, all on a secure foundation.
With over two decades in SaaS, I bring deep experience in product development, cloud infrastructure, applied AI, and security/compliance. I know how to lead through growth, uncertainty, and change without slowing you down.
How I Help
From business impact to hands-on delivery.
- Value Creation
I find where technology is capping growth and margin, turn it into a prioritized plan tied to the numbers, and lead the work to capture it. - Product & Development
End-to-end product leadership: strategy, UX, specifications, architecture, and hands-on development. I build and ship, from idea to production. - Applied AI
I build AI features and agents and get them into production: deciding where AI belongs and where it doesn't, grounding it in your data, and proving it works with evaluations before it ships. - AI-Driven Delivery
I build with AI tooling every day, moving at the speed of a small team without giving up quality. I also design development processes around what AI now automates, from ideation through shipping and maintenance, with the CI/CD and cloud infrastructure to support it. - Security & Compliance
Security and compliance built in from the start: SOC 2, secure architecture, and DevSecOps. That foundation is what makes it safe to put AI near sensitive data.
Writing & Projects
- Process and People: How to Run an AI-Driven Engineering Team
Individual coding got faster, but shipping didn't always follow. A practical guide to the two decisions that decide whether an AI-driven engineering team actually ships faster: how much of code review to automate, and how to compose the team. Written for founders and engineering leaders, with sources. - 9 Tech Health Questions Every Non-Technical SaaS Founder Should Be Asking
An in-depth checklist to help SaaS founders without a technical background assess how their technology is really doing. Covers code ownership, deployment readiness, security, scalability, and product roadmap alignment. - Quest Mouse
A side project: a conversational AI Dungeon Master for D&D, built with voice AI and modern LLMs. I'm building it in public and writing about it on my Substack: architecture decisions, where AI tools succeed and fail, and what I'm learning building with AI.
Background
Deep experience across SaaS, services, and startup ecosystems
- Founder & Principal Consultant – Parforce LLC (2025–present)
Creating value for founders and leadership teams: finding where technology can drive growth and profitability, then delivering it. Fractional CTO, product leadership, and advisory, with hands-on AI-assisted development, platform and systems migrations, and onboarding engineering teams onto AI development tooling and workflows. - Fractional CTO & Product Lead – Written Word Media (2025–2026)
Hands-on product and engineering leadership for a media and marketing platform. Stabilized delivery, redesigned workflows with AI-assisted automation, in some cases reducing manual effort by as much as 95%. - CTO & Co-Founder – Channeltivity (2007–2025)
Built and led product, engineering, and compliance for a leading PRM platform. Grew from zero to millions in ARR, achieved top G2 rankings, and led multiple SOC 2 Type II audits with zero exceptions. - CEO – Analog Method (2001–2012)
Ran and scaled a digital agency, delivering award-winning work for high-profile clients. Sold the company in 2012. - Director of Web Dev – CBI Connect (2000-2002)
Led web application development for B2B clients, owning architecture and delivery. - University of Pennsylvania
BAS Computer Science, cum laude (2003)
Get In Touch
If you need a technical leader who can build, ship, and make good decisions, on your team or for a focused engagement, let's talk.