▍ Andrew Drake · CTO · Senior Engineer
Financial Markets, Banking, Enterprise & Startup Tech
Since
1997
CTO and senior engineer specialising in financial technology. 29 years turning ambiguous briefs into systems that ship, scale and don't wake you up at 3 a.m. Complex projects with financial maths, payment systems, risk management, regulatory compliance & Cybersecurity are all in my wheelhouse, but I'm equally at home building modern web applications and data platforms across various sectors.
- Years shipping
- 29
- Projects
- 100+
- Sector focus
- Fintech
- Since
- 1997
A long arc
A career built across three decades of enterprise & web technology.
From first hand-rolled PHP sites in the late 90s, to globally scaling data platforms & today's modern reactive applications — same craft, sharper tools, and some AI of late.
-
1997
University & First Projects
At Sydney University studying Economics, Finance & Computer Science, Hand-coded HTML/PHP sites for businesses.
-
2005
Global Banking Tech
Post university roles in global banking technology. Trading platforms, data warehouses & reporting systems.
-
2015
Web Applications
Built and operated a technology consulting business. Retail, fashion, education and finance clients.
-
2026
CTO / Senior Engineer
Now working with founders and teams as their CTO and senior engineer — strategy plus shipping.
Solutions
What I'm typically hired to do.
Mid- to large-scale technology projects where strategy, code and business outcomes need to line up.
01
Fractional CTO
Senior technology leadership on demand — strategy, architecture, hiring and delivery oversight without the full-time overhead.
02
Product & Tech Strategy
Align product investment, technical choices and business outcomes — before a single line of code is written.
03
TALL-stack Development
Hands-on Laravel, Livewire, Alpine and Tailwind build work — from greenfield SaaS to high-traffic e-commerce.
04
Technical Audits
Independent reviews of codebases, architecture, security posture and team practices — with a prioritised action list.
05
Platform & API Design
Design and build the platforms, APIs and integrations that other teams build their products on top of.
06
Team Mentoring
Lift the standard of existing engineering teams — code review, pairing, hiring help and senior-level mentorship.
Est. 1997
Have a project that needs a steady hand?
Tell me what you're building — I'll come back with a frank assessment and a path forward.
Start the conversation