HomeThreaderCleanerPostsAbout

David Cheal

CTO / Principal Consultant
LinkedIn

I’m a hands-on CTO / Principal Consultant who enables businesses to succeed, by establishing secure, scalable and cost-effective technology. Over 12+ years I’ve led AWS migrations, built consultancies (one acquired by Deloitte), and delivered secure, high-availability systems in finance and ecommerce. I now run my own business, building an AI-driven education platform end-to-end. I’m practical, delivery-focused, and comfortable owning both technical decisions and commercial outcomes.

Core Strengths

  • Cloud architecture & delivery

    AWS-first design, migrations/modernisation, scalable systems, reliability/cost control, serverless

  • Engineering leadership

    Hands-on CTO, pragmatic delivery, hiring/mentoring, stakeholder management

  • Security & governance

    Least privilege, DevSecOps, controls, platform hardening, risk-based decision making

  • Product engineering

    TypeScript/Node backend, React SPA, CI/CD, monorepos, testing, vendor service integration

  • AI integration

    LLM workflow/orchestration design, prompt/tooling patterns, production concerns (quality, cost, observability), governance and security

Professional Experience

Director — Thermite Consulting

2020–Present

Founded and operated a product-focused company; hands-on across architecture, engineering, security, delivery, and commercial decisions.

Consulting Services

  • Merger and Acquisition, technology assessments
  • Cybersecurity assessments and uplifts, including mission-critical systems for ASX trading and accounting platforms.
  • Application and DevSecOps solutions development for financial loans platform

Product Development

Nitpick.help
AI-driven student assessment platform (in Beta).
  • A multi-tenant SaaS platform that uses LLM workflows to generate grading, learning plans and learning content.
  • Designed and implemented end-to-end platform foundations: authentication, authorisation, payments, CI/CD, observability, and automated testing.
  • Built LLM orchestration pipelines using workflow automation (Step Functions) and provider SDK integrations.
  • Large scale research into LLM grading capabilities, response bias, content/response consistency and feedback loops for LLM self assessment.
  • Developed internal tools for synthetic test data generation and quality testing of grading pipelines.
Technologies
Node.js
TypeScript
Fastify
PostgreSQL
React
Material UI
Redux Toolkit
OpenAI
Anthropic
AWS Bedrock
Step Functions
Clerk
Stripe
Lambda
S3
API Gateway
DynamoDB
AWS CDK
Docker
GitHub Actions
NeonDB
Playwright
Vitest
Maverick
AI Software Development Framework | Open Source
  • An open-source Claude Code plugin and CLI that enforces quality, security, and operational best practices during autonomous AI-driven development
  • 28 built-in skills covering logging, alerting, testing, CI/CD, git workflows, and security governance; plus an upskill system that auto-generates project-specific guidance by scanning the codebase
  • Autonomous agents for code review, testing, and technical documentation — isolated from implementation to avoid self-assessment bias
  • Dual workflow modes: fully autonomous (from GitHub issues) and guided (with human checkpoints at design/planning phases), plus local task support without requiring GitHub
  • Enforcement hooks that prevent dangerous operations (commits to protected branches, secret exposure) at the tool-call level
  • Built with Python 3.10+, boto3, Jinja2; includes optional AWS infrastructure provisioning for remote autonomous workers
Python
boto3
Jinja2
Claude Code
GitHub Actions

Co-Founder / Director / Lead Architect — NC Group

2017–2020

Created a consultancy to deliver ecommerce and ordering/delivery platforms (team ~8 engineers, including offshore staff).

  • Led architecture and hands-on implementation of a scalable serverless AWS platform.
  • Established delivery practices around automation, DevSecOps and agile execution.
  • Managed key client relationships; led hiring and delivery staffing (local + offshore).

Director / CTO / Lead Architect — Strut Digital

2014–2017

Grew from ~4 to ~25 staff over 3 years; delivered a wide range of AWS projects (from small builds to complex regulated/high-availability environments). Business ultimately acquired by Deloitte.

  • CTO/lead architect for client engagements: solution design, technical leadership, delivery oversight.
  • Designed and implemented AWS platforms across ecommerce, banking, and airline-related systems (incl. work involving Qantas systems).
  • Partnered with Amazon Web Services sales and stakeholders to support adoption and migration programs.
  • Shared responsibility for operations: hiring, contracts, finance/legal, vendor management.

Co-Founder / Principal Consultant — Krunchtime

2013–2014

Started an AWS migration and implementation consultancy (2 founders, later hired junior engineer) during early AWS adoption in Australia.

  • Owned solution design and hands-on delivery across core AWS services and automation.
  • Ran client management and business operations alongside delivery.