Services v1

Version 1 — current published version.

Fractional Principal Engineer

James Phillips has over 25 years of experience building and operating software at companies including SpaceX, Netflix, Google, HashiCorp, and Sequoia Capital.

He can quickly form a mental model of a complex software system, identify the constraints that matter, and reason from first principles about what to build, change, simplify, or delete.

Areas of experience include:

Software architecture and design
Deleting things at all levels of the stack, and sometimes entire stacks and projects
Critical code and design reviews
Cloud infrastructure and DevOps
Data engineering and data infrastructure
High-performance real-time embedded systems
Distributed systems
Building and managing software teams, and teams of agents

Engagements are sold as a small number of fixed monthly slots. A slot gives your team reserved access to James throughout the month:

8 hours of scheduled time per month: in-person or via video, divided however you choose (architecture reviews, technical planning, pair programming, interviews)
8 hours of async time per month: typically via Slack, pull requests, or docs (code reviews, design feedback, general guidance, interview follow-ups), with responses usually within 24 hours
In-person includes anywhere in Los Angeles, travel outside Los Angeles can be arranged with expenses billed separately
Month-to-month, with no minimum commitment
$8,000 per month per slot

Slots offer a way to add principal-level technical judgment when it has the most leverage, without recruiting a full-time principal engineer or making a long-term commitment.

If you’d like to find out more, please contact james@modulecollective.com.