Ben Howdle — CEO

I’m a product-minded full-stack engineer and former startup CTO with 15 years of experience building and scaling products from zero to millions of users. Most recently, I worked as a product engineer at a UK legal tech startup, taking them from concept to MVP. Before that, I was part of the Commerce team at Clerk, where I designed and delivered core backend infrastructure in Go - joining a brand-new team and helping ship a completely new product in just a few months. I’ve led engineering at early-stage startups (WorkMade, Letter), owning architecture, backend, frontend, DevOps, and delivery. I’ve also embedded with larger organisations like Cisco, GoDaddy, MyTheresa, and Soho House - adapting quickly to different stacks, cultures, and velocities. I don’t just write code - I think about behaviour, scale, API boundaries, performance, DX, and the downstream impact of every technical choice. I build with AI where it adds real value, and I use it daily to move faster. My stack spans Node.js/TypeScript, Go, React, Postgres, AWS/GCP, and edge architectures - from greenfield MVPs to high-traffic production platforms. I’m open to fractional technical leadership, hands-on product engineering, advisory work, or the right full-time role on a product-driven team that values ownership, clarity, and speed. Based in the UK. Working remotely with global teams for over a decade. I’m the author of The First CTO: The Job Nobody Explains, a playbook for first-time CTOs at early-stage startups. Launching March 31st at benhowdle.im/first-cto-playbook

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Full-Stack Engineer with extensive experience in Legal Tech and AI-driven startups.

Experience: 7 yrs 2 mos