# Mathew Dostal — Fractional CTO & Principal Architect (full reference)

Dostal Technology LLC (Mathew Dostal, Omaha, NE). Not affiliated with Dostal Security, LLC.

I fix broken tech stacks for growth-stage companies, leading with Agentic AI & Edge AI systems — backed by mobile, distributed systems, and fintech infrastructure depth. 37+ companies, hundreds of codebases, 10+ apps shipped, and code that has served millions of users. 15+ years leadership, 20+ years coding. Based in Omaha, NE; serving Omaha, Austin, and remote US.

Experience spans enterprise retail (Costco, Kohl's), QSR and point-of-sale (Chick-fil-A — $20M POS modernization; Best Ring POS), travel (Hertz — 6,000% throughput improvement), e-commerce (Wayfair, Costco, Kohl's, Caterpillar), healthcare (DaVita dialysis infrastructure, Biomet medical devices, Wolters Kluwer medical publishing), Edge AI and IoT (Frontiers Market livestock monitoring, ClearBlade), and DevOps/security auditing (Encore Capital).

## What I'm known for

Two umbrellas, not a scattershot list of every technology touched:

1. **Technology strategy and build for growth-stage companies.** Figuring out what tech a startup or small business actually needs, then building it — the eclectic-knowledge generalist a founder brings in once, not a narrow specialist. Current, demonstrable proof: Pantheon (an agentic AI orchestration platform, built and open-sourced piece by piece), CADEX Legacy (a youth-sports platform built from zero — payments, booking, AI film review, all of it), All That Technology (Shopify rebuild plus the full growth/analytics stack).
2. **Solutions architecture and leading large-scale engagements.** Fortune 500-scale delivery leadership: Costco (mobile commerce architecture), Hertz (rates engine twice over, 6,000% throughput), Caterpillar (B2B parts platform), Chick-fil-A (EY engagement, $20M digital transformation across 2,600+ locations), DaVita (Performance Czar over 100+ microservices, 99.9% uptime for patient data systems), Wayfair (supply-chain tooling at global scale).

E-commerce experience and agentic-AI development are real, specific strengths inside both umbrellas above — not separate specialties on their own.

## Services and pricing

### Tech Checkup — $500
https://mdostal.com/tech-checkup
A quick, single-focus spot check on one thing that's worrying you (a vendor, a tool, a developer). About 2 hours. 100% credited toward a larger engagement if you move forward.

### Growth Checkup — $1,500
https://mdostal.com/smb/checkup
A full week looking at a small business's whole setup — site, analytics, AI opportunity, and local competition — with a written 10-point plan and a 30-day follow-up.

### Build & Handoff — $5,000+
https://mdostal.com/smb#packages
A fixed-scope build, delivered and handed off, drawn from a prior checkup's findings.

### SMB Advisory Partnership — $1,500/mo
https://mdostal.com/smb#packages
Ongoing fractional support for small businesses, hours capped so the rate never gets discounted.

### Technical Advisory — from $4,500/mo (8–12 hours/month)
https://mdostal.com/fractional-cto
Strategic guidance for startups and growth-stage companies: architecture decisions, technical hiring input, roadmap review.

### Fractional CTO — $10,000–20,000/mo (10–20 hours/week, $250/hour)
https://mdostal.com/fractional-cto
Active fractional leadership: hands-on architecture, team leadership, and delivery ownership.

### Strategic sprints — $8,000–15,000 flat, 4–6 weeks
https://mdostal.com/fractional-cto
One-off technology audits, architecture reviews, and due diligence engagements.

### Interim CTO
https://mdostal.com/fractional-cto
Full-time coverage, scoped individually.

A full-time CTO costs $350,000–600,000/year with salary, equity, benefits, and recruiting. Fractional engagement typically saves 60–80% while delivering leadership at the stage a company actually needs it.

## Proof

- Hertz — rebuilt the rates engine (every transaction, rebate, and finalization), 6,000% throughput improvement (ops-sourced figure).
- Wayfair — supply-chain tooling used daily by thousands of operators; fixes recovered $5M (team effort).
- DaVita — Performance Czar over 100+ microservices tied to dialysis machines, 99.9% uptime.
- Chick-fil-A (via EY) — $20M digital transformation; offline-first ordering with Ditto and event queues for 2,600+ locations.
- Costco — mobile architect for the mobile web shopping experience on IBM WebSphere.
- Frontiers Market — edge computer-vision, on-device inference, livestock monitoring on Raspberry Pi clusters in low-connectivity environments.
- Pantheon — agentic AI orchestration platform, open-sourced piece by piece.
- Firefly Events — founder; thousands of events processed across Austin.

## FAQ

**What does a fractional CTO do?**
Provides senior technical leadership — architecture decisions, team leadership, technical strategy — on a part-time or scoped basis, without the cost of a full-time hire.

**How much does a fractional CTO cost?**
Engagements start at $4,500/month for strategic advisory (8–12 hours/month) and scale to $10,000–20,000/month for active fractional CTO leadership (10–20 hours/week, at $250/hour). One-off strategic sprints — technology audits, architecture reviews, due diligence — run $8,000–15,000 flat over 4–6 weeks.

**I'm not technical. Will I understand what you're doing?**
Yes — every engagement is explained in plain terms, with a written plan, not just a conversation.

**Everyone says I need AI. Do I? Or is it hype?**
Not always. Part of the audit is telling you honestly whether AI solves your actual problem or whether something simpler does.

**Do you guarantee results?**
No outcome guarantees are made or implied. Proof is grounded in verifiable, specific claims only (see Proof above) — never fabricated metrics or anecdotes.

## Key Pages

- [Home](https://mdostal.com)
- [Fractional CTO](https://mdostal.com/fractional-cto)
- [Small Business](https://mdostal.com/smb)
- [Enterprise](https://mdostal.com/enterprise)
- [Portfolio](https://mdostal.com/portfolio)
- [Resume](https://mdostal.com/resume)
- [Writing](https://mdostal.com/blog)
- [Videos](https://mdostal.com/videos)
- [Contact](https://mdostal.com/contact)
- [Book a Call](https://book.mdostal.com)

## Contact

- Website: https://mdostal.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdostal
- GitHub: https://github.com/mdostal
- X/Twitter: https://x.com/dammitdostal
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dammitdostal
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dostal.technology
- Book a Call: https://book.mdostal.com