SYSTEM/v.2026.05 · ONLINEEngineering & AI Consulting · Naples / Remote

Ship, don't pitch.

A small team of senior engineers, fractional CTOs and AI specialists serving SMEs, startups and scale-ups that need serious software without hiring an internal team. No decks. Only software that works.

v2026.5 · build.kytheroncollective: senior engineersbased in: Naples, ITopen to: 3 engagements / Q3
/numbers · receipts
30+yrs
combined engineering experience
200k+
daily users on systems in production
10+yrs
open source contributions · international conferences
SME
startups, scale-ups and growing businesses
Capabilities · /services

Ten practices, one discipline: engineering.

We work as a horizontal engineering platform. Our services compose based on the client's technical maturity — from greenfield to replatforming.

01 / 10

Digital Transformation

Roadmaps, architectures and migrations that translate business priorities into measurable systems.

CloudLegacy → ModernStrategy
02 / 10

Process Automation

Agentic workflows, integrations and RPA designed to eliminate repetitive work end-to-end.

n8nTemporalAPI
03 / 10

AI Transformation

LLM-native architectures, enterprise-grade RAG, and domain-specific copilots.

LLM OpsRAGAgents
04 / 10

SaaS Engineering

Zero to one: multi-tenant, scalable, maintainable products — built as if they were ours.

Next.jsPostgresEdge
05 / 10

Digital Coaching

We embed with internal teams via pair-engineering, code reviews and architectural decision records.

MentorshipADRReviews
06 / 10

Digital Training

Tailored bootcamps and learning paths: applied AI, DevEx, platform engineering, prompt design.

WorkshopCurriculumOn-site
07 / 10

Fractional CTO

A senior technical figure, part-time, sitting at the decision table alongside the founder.

StrategyRoadmapBoard
08 / 10

Head of Engineering · aaS

We build, scale and govern your engineering team until you're ready to run it yourself.

HiringProcessDelivery
09 / 10

Recruiting · aaS

Talent acquisition for high-end IT profiles: senior, lead, staff. Selection done by engineers.

SeniorLeadStaff+
10 / 10 · special

Procurement & Partnership

Can't find the right vendor? We build (or orchestrate) the partner you need — directly, or via our network of independent studios — always under our project management and technical leadership.

Vendor SourcingPM · Tech LeadNetwork
How it works
01We map the real technical need, not the one in the brief.
02We source from our network (studios, senior freelancers, vertical partners) or execute internally.
03Single point of contact: we are the PM and technical lead, not a broker.
04Quality bar identical to work we'd deliver ourselves. The partner doesn't act like an agency — they act like us.
Operating model

A five-step cycle.

Designed to intervene at specific points in the lifecycle — not to sell hours.

Avg. engagement
12 weeks
01 · DIAGNOSE

Diagnose.

Technical, organizational and product audit. We map where the system leaks energy: legacy, debt, process, talent.

02 · ARCHITECT

Architect.

Explicit decisions, signed ADRs, documented trade-offs. No prototypes accidentally becoming production.

03 · BUILD

Build.

In-house engineering or hybrid with your team. Modern stack, type-safe, observable from day one.

04 · OPERATE

Operate.

We get our hands on the on-call, dashboards and incident response. We stay until autonomy is real.

05 · TRANSFER

Transfer.

Living documentation, structured onboarding, continuous mentorship. Success is the moment we're no longer needed.

Leadership · on demand

Senior engineering leadership, without the full-time.

For scale-up startups and SMEs that need to make high-level technical decisions before they can hire internally.

FRACTIONAL · CTO

Chief Technology Officer.

You're a non-technical founder, or you're technical but can no longer scale alone. We step in as fractional CTO — board, hiring, architecture, vendor management.

Architecture and 18-month technology roadmap
Technical due diligence for funding rounds
Vendor management and build vs. buy
Coaching of the existing technical team
ENGAGEMENT2 – 4 days / month
HEAD OF ENG · AAS

Head of Engineering.

Your team already exists but lacks structure. We step in the middle — process, delivery, culture, hiring. We build, then hand over the keys.

Career ladder, OKRs and delivery cadence definition
On-call, incident response, postmortem culture
Hiring of senior and lead engineers (paired with us)
Structured handover to an internal Head
ENGAGEMENT6 – 12 months · embedded
Recruiting · aaS

Selection done by engineers, for engineers.

Talent acquisition for senior IT roles — staff, lead and principal. Our technical screens are run by people who have actually held that role. No keyword matching, no middlemen.

Staff EngineerEngineering ManagerPlatform LeadAI EngineerFounding EngineerSolutions ArchitectSenior Full-StackHead of Data
100%
technical screen by engineers
4–6w
average sourcing window
12mo
retention guarantee
0
no middlemen · no agency layer
Manifesto · /how-we-work

We believe most companies don't need more strategy, more frameworks, or more decks.

They need a small group of technical people who walk in, read the code, and make them work things.

01

Ship, don't pitch.

Every sprint's deliverable is code in production — not a PDF.

02

AI-native, not AI-washed.

We build as if LLMs, embeddings and agents were default primitives.

03

Only people who can do the work.

No pyramids: every person you see at kickoff is the one writing the code.

04

Boring tech, smart application.

Postgres before Cassandra. Predictable before novel.

05

Document the why.

ADR for every non-trivial choice. The future maintainer will thank you.

06

Leave it better.

When we leave, the system is simpler than when we walked in.

Read the full manifesto
/collective · the people

A collective, not an agency.

A group of senior engineers who actually write the code. When you work with KytheronLabs you don't go through an account manager — you work directly with the technical people executing the project.

LevelStaff+ · Principal · Senior
StackNode · PHP · Java · Python · TypeScript · Go · Elixir · Rust
CloudAWS · GCP · self-hosted
AILLM-native · RAG · Agent systems
ModelFractional · Embedded · Project
BaseNaples · Remote · Europe
/get-in-touch

Got a system to build,
redesign, or understand?

Free 30-minute discovery call. No sales, no questionnaires — we look directly at what you need to ship.

or directly at · · hello@kytheronlabs.com