Fractional CTO | AI Workforce Strategy | Engineering & Security Executive
Matthew Sim
Revenue leaks. Processing bottlenecks. Deployment friction. I find them and fix them — before they find you. 20+ years building enterprise systems that perform at scale.
I build teams where people are happy, healthy, and productive — not just where they can be driven to meet ROI.
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I help companies with engineering org buildout, security posture hardening, and tech strategy that turns cost centers into advantages. Available for fractional CTO engagements.
Engineering Leadership & Team Building
I build engineering teams and the systems around them at enterprise scale. Hiring pipelines, code review processes, deployment automation, development standards. The unsexy infrastructure that lets 14 or 15 engineers actually ship.
At Creator Deck that added up to 60% fewer customer complaints, 40% more deployments, and 50% fewer failures. At Wells Fargo I ran 15 engineers across multiple squads during a monolith-to-microservices migration. At Cognito I was employee one on the technical side, building from nothing to enterprise-ready. I put a lot of weight on mentoring. Teams that invest in their people stick around and ship better work.
I was employee one on the technical side at Cognito. Built the engineering org from scratch — hiring, standards, deployment pipelines, the works. Scaled the team and delivered features in days instead of weeks.
- 6 engineers scaled engineering team from founding 2 to 8 engineers through strategic hiring and onboarding
- 70% reduced feature delivery cycle from weeks to days by establishing CI/CD pipelines and development standards
- 4 levels advanced engineering team from ad-hoc processes to mature practices including code review, deployment automation, and technical debt management
When I arrived at Creator Deck, the team was drowning in customer complaints from a fragile tech stack. I rebuilt it around data-driven problem solving—every decision backed by metrics.
Within 18 months, customer complaints dropped 60%, deployment frequency tripled, and the team went from firefighting to shipping with confidence.
- 60% reduction in customer complaints by rebuilding the tech stack around data-driven problem solving
- 40% increase in deployment frequency through CI/CD pipelines and standardized development practices
- 50% reduction in deployment failures by replacing manual releases with automated CI/CD
- 30% increase in team satisfaction through structured mentoring and professional development
I ran 15 engineers across multiple squads during a massive monolith-to-microservices migration. The challenge wasn't just technical—it was getting a Fortune 500 bank to embrace agile practices.
We raised deployment frequency 40% while maintaining banking-grade reliability.
- 15 engineers led team during monolith-to-microservices migration at a Fortune 500 bank
- 40% increased deployment frequency for banking systems through CI/CD implementation
Started as a PHP developer, quickly became the person running the servers too. Bridged development and operations before DevOps was a thing — that dual role shaped how I build systems meant for production.
- 99% improved site uptime by rebuilding hosting stack from ad-hoc deployments to reproducible, monitored infrastructure
- 40% reduced page load times through server infrastructure optimization for product sites serving millions of monthly visitors
Cybersecurity & Intelligence Operations
My security work is hands-on, not advisory. I hold a SANS GCFA and have done the actual coursework in penetration testing, malware reverse engineering, digital forensics, and OSINT. I spent over a decade in security engineering at Wells Fargo, where I built a custom web app that cut audit time by 75% and reduced critical vulnerabilities across the board.
Now I run Hive42, delivering AI workforce strategies and automation solutions that integrate with existing enterprise systems. The jump from defensive security to AI workforce strategy follows the same pattern: understanding how systems fail and building solutions that work with human judgment.
After over a decade of hands-on security at Wells Fargo, I founded Hive42 to help businesses implement AI workforce strategies that actually work.
My approach: understand how systems fail, then build solutions that work with human judgment, not against it.
- 100% implemented secure AI integration frameworks ensuring all client AI deployments meet enterprise security standards
- 5 frameworks designed security frameworks covering PDPA, ISO 27001, GDPR, SOC 2, and CCPA for AI workforce implementations
Secured a multi-tenant B2B SaaS platform from the ground up. Implemented SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 compliance, and built security frameworks that enterprise clients actually trusted.
- 3 frameworks implemented security frameworks including data encryption, access controls, and audit logging for multi-tenant SaaS platform
- 2 certifications achieved SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 compliance for enterprise B2B platform
I spent over a decade in security engineering at Wells Fargo, building a custom web app that cut audit time by 75%.
I reduced critical vulnerabilities by 10% across the entire enterprise through targeted security initiatives.
- 75% reduction in security audit time through a custom web application (Ruby on Rails, Python, React) replacing manual log review
- 10% reduction in critical and high-severity vulnerabilities through targeted security initiatives across enterprise systems
- 50% improvement in secure code quality through mentoring junior engineers in secure coding practices
Cloud Infrastructure & Architecture
I've designed cloud infrastructure on AWS and GCP for systems that serve enterprise clients. At Wells Fargo that meant planning the migration from a monolithic Rails app to microservices. At Cognito it meant building everything from scratch: service design, database selection, infrastructure for high-availability systems.
I've also set technology budgets and run build-vs-buy analysis. Same pattern whether you're at a bank or a startup: make decisions based on what the business actually needs.
Built the entire cloud infrastructure from scratch at Cognito. Service design, database selection, high-availability architecture. Made every infrastructure decision based on what the business actually needed.
- 99.9% maintained 99.9% uptime for enterprise B2B SaaS platform serving multiple enterprise clients
- 35% reduced infrastructure costs through AWS/GCP optimization, auto-scaling, and strategic resource allocation
I planned and led the migration from a monolithic Rails application to microservices.
Migrated 12 services with zero downtime, reduced system latency 60%, and cut infrastructure costs 40% through cloud optimization.
- 12 services migrated 12 services from monolithic Rails app to microservices architecture with zero downtime
- 60% reduced system latency from 200ms to 80ms through database optimization and caching strategies
- 40% reduced infrastructure costs through cloud migration and resource optimization
Owned the full stack at Bizjournals — wrote the code, deployed it, kept the servers running. Rebuilt the hosting setup from scratch and learned that shipping fast means nothing if the infrastructure can't handle it.
- 100% rebuilt hosting stack from ad-hoc deployments to reproducible, monitored infrastructure serving millions of monthly visitors
- 80% reduced site downtime by replacing manual server management with monitored, reproducible infrastructure
AI & Machine Learning Integration
I build AI systems that solve specific business problems. At Wells Fargo I shipped a fraud detection system that cut false positives by 20% while catching 15% more actual fraud. Less noise for investigators, more fraud detected. At Creator Deck I rebuilt data pipelines to cut processing from 6 hours to 2.
At Hive42 I'm helping businesses implement AI workforce strategies that work alongside their existing systems, not replace them. The AI part is straightforward. The hard part is picking the right problem to solve and making it work in your existing operations.
I help businesses implement AI workforce strategies that integrate with existing systems.
Achieved 85% success rate by focusing on AI+Human solutions that augment rather than replace human teams, delivering measurable ROI within 4 months.
- 85% achieved 85% success rate in AI workforce implementations that integrate with existing systems
- 4 months delivered measurable ROI for clients within 4 months through phased AI integration approach
- 70% automated 70% of repetitive workflows through AI+Human workforce solutions
Rebuilt Creator Deck's data pipelines from the ground up. Cut a 6-hour processing run down to 2 hours by moving to real-time processing with sub-second latency. The old pipeline was a bottleneck; the new one just kept up.
- 67% reduction in data processing time (6 hours to 2 hours) by rebuilding pipelines for real-time processing
I engineered and deployed an ML fraud detection system at Wells Fargo that cut false positives by 20% while catching 15% more actual fraud.
Less noise for investigators, more fraud detected.
- 20% reduction in fraud false positives through a deployed ML fraud detection system
- 15% increase in accurate fraud detection through an ML system deployed at a Fortune 500 bank