Patrick Ortell
VP Engineering | CTO | Technical Product Owner | AI/ML Leader
Fort Collins, CO (Remote-First)
Summary
Engineering leader with 14 years of experience scaling products from zero to $50M ARR. Three successful exits. Built and led teams from 2 to 80+ across CTO, VP Engineering, and Technical Product Owner roles. Deep hands-on expertise in AI/ML (LLMs, MLOps, SageMaker, Langchain), blockchain infrastructure, and cloud-native architecture. Proven track record of 100% on-time delivery, 70% cost reductions through LLM automation, and shipping production AI products ahead of the market.
Key Achievements
- $0 to $50M ARR — Scaled product and grew engineering org from senior IC to VP level
- 3 successful acquisitions — biemedia, Pegcog/Techstars, and contributing roles
- 100% on-time delivery — 8 consecutive quarters on a decentralized protocol (Rust, AWS, K8s)
- 70% support cost reduction — Via LLM automation (GPT-4, Langchain) at SpexAI
- First AI chatbot in AgTech — A full year ahead of any competitor
- 85% fewer production incidents — Through MLOps discipline and observability
- 60% MTTR reduction — Via Grafana/Prometheus observability framework
Experience
Mentor
Techstars | Jun 2023 – Present | Boulder, CO
- Lead mentor for early-stage companies on engineering architecture, product strategy, and technical hiring
- Advised on SOC2 compliance, DevOps, ML infrastructure, technical due diligence, and SDLC
- Helped founders build and scale high-functioning cross-functional engineering teams
Technical Product Manager
Project Liberty — Frequency Protocol | Nov 2022 – Nov 2025 | Remote
- Directed 11-person distributed team across 4 time zones building a Rust-based decentralized social protocol
- Achieved 100% on-time delivery across 8 consecutive quarters, shipping 4 major protocol releases
- Reduced mean time to recovery (MTTR) by 60% through Grafana/Prometheus observability framework
Rust, TypeScript, Svelte, AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, GraphQL
Machine Learning Engineer & Product Owner
SpexAI GmbH | Sep 2022 – Mar 2025 | Remote
- Led MLOps and product strategy for enterprise AI platform serving agricultural customers
- Improved ML model performance by 30% through pipeline optimization
- Reduced support costs 70% by shipping LLM-powered automation (GPT-4, Langchain)
- Cut production incidents 85% through MLOps discipline (MLflow, monitoring, CI/CD)
- Shipped the first chatbot in AgTech — a year ahead of any competitor
Python, AWS SageMaker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Langchain, MLflow
Vice President of Engineering
Choi Holdings | Sep 2021 – Jun 2022 | Remote
- Managed distributed team of 18 engineers across 4 time zones
- Achieved 95% satisfaction rating in weekly 1:1s; built high-trust engineering culture
Nest.js, TypeScript, Vue.js, Swift, Kotlin, Terraform, AWS, Kubernetes
Chief Technology Officer
TiLT | Jun 2020 – Mar 2021
- Led team of 7 engineers; owned technical roadmap and architecture decisions
- Reduced cloud costs 20% by migrating from Heroku to AWS
Node.js, TypeScript, GraphQL, React, AWS
VP of Engineering
Radar | Apr 2018 – Jun 2020 | Promoted from Senior Engineer → Director → VP
- Grew from IC to VP, managing 15 direct reports across blockchain trading infrastructure
- Shipped 4 technical strategies aligned with SEC compliance requirements
Node.js, TypeScript, GraphQL, Vue.js, React, Python, Golang, Ethereum, Hyperledger, AWS, GCP
Chief Technology Officer
TurboTenant | Oct 2016 – Apr 2018 | Fort Collins, CO
- Managed 9 direct reports; introduced 3 new technologies driving 25% operational efficiency improvement
Node.js, React, Ruby, PostgreSQL, AWS
Senior Software Engineer → Director of R&D
CommercialTribe | Apr 2015 – Dec 2016
- Managed 12 engineers across 3 time zones; achieved 90% sprint completion rate
- Built WebRTC real-time video platform and React Native applications
Earlier: Software Engineer at Cadence & Cause · Product Owner at Levels Beyond · Developer at biemedia (acquired) · Engineer at Techstars/Pegcog (acquired) · Intern at Mozilla
Technical Skills
- AI/ML — LLMs, GPT-4, Langchain, MLflow, AWS SageMaker, ML pipelines, MLOps, model optimization
- Languages — Rust, Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Golang, Ruby, Scala
- Infrastructure — AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, Docker, CI/CD, SOC2 compliance
- Backend — Node.js, Nest.js, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Redis
- Frontend — React, Vue.js, Svelte, React Native
- Blockchain — Ethereum, Hyperledger, Substrate/Rust protocols, SEC-compliant trading systems
- Leadership — Team scaling (2–80+), distributed teams, technical hiring, architecture review, product strategy
Education & Certifications
Metropolitan State College of Denver — Dual BSA, Technical Communications & Computer Science (2009–2013)
AWS Data Analytics · Data Science on Google Cloud Platform: Architecting Solutions · AWS End User Computing Competency Partner · Ethereum: Building Blockchain Decentralized Apps · Planning and Releasing Software with JIRA · GraphQL Essential Training · Elasticsearch Essential Training · Blockchain: Beyond the Basics · Expert Scrum Master Certified (ESMC) · M101JS: MongoDB for Node.js
What people say
“He will not say what you want to hear, but need to hear. Forging a solution that is fit for the task with as little ego as possible. His first product to market was the first ChatBot in an AgTech application, at least a year ahead of everyone else. Because he can cut through the noise.”
“Patrick brought a rare combination of deep technical expertise — especially in AI — and a broad command of web3, crypto, wallets, and blockchain systems. His ability to translate complex systems into clear product direction was invaluable.”
“Patrick was one of our mentors at Techstars and easily the most impactful. He has this rare ability to immediately understand a problem and zero in on smart, scrappy ways to solve it. He even jumped in to support our first AI/ML hire, from assessment to onboarding.”
“Patrick didn’t just recite technical facts. He translated ML intricacies into choices that fit our product and resource constraints. If you need someone who can make real impact in ambiguous, high-stakes environments, Patrick is the person you want in your corner.”
“He can be anything you need him to be. Architect, developer, product shepherd, teacher, organizer, leader. A bottomless well of skills. I believe he’s the best CTO in Colorado and the first stop for me on any technology endeavor.”
“Patrick has a unique character mix between setting and maintaining high standards and an overall roll-with-it attitude that positively imprints on a team. Integrity, attention to detail, commitment to deadlines, quality are a handful of traits that represent Patrick.”
“Patrick is a total pro. There is no project too big or too small for this guy. He always goes above and beyond and delivers on time — usually more than what I’ve asked for. I would jump at the opportunity to hire Patrick again in a heartbeat.”
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