I build products, and the lean teams that ship them.

I work between the UK and India. I help UK companies build lean engineering teams in India, and Indian startups get their product ready for UK customers and investors. I've led an offshore team of 15 to 20 engineers in Bengaluru (Bangalore), and today I lead the decisioning technology behind lending at Zopa, the UK's leading unsecured personal loan provider. I ship fast with AI and stand behind every line.

Taking on a small number of engagements between the UK and India.

Where our working days overlap

London08:43

India13:13

4½ hours of shared working day: 09:00 to 13:30 in London, 13:30 to 18:00 in India.

Experience

Leora

A case study from the company I co-founded. Visit Leora

A production dating platform, designed and built by one engineer.

from first commit to the App Store
4 months
to build, from first commit to launch
£1,500
a month to run in production
£250
engineer, from design to production
1

Leora is an identity-verified dating app from Leora Group, the company I co-founded. I designed and built all of it: native iPhone and Android apps, a web admin console with moderation tools, and the platform underneath.

That platform is 16 independently deployed services on AWS that talk through events, not to each other, so any one can change without breaking the rest. Every service is defined in code and tested in its own pipeline. Each release lands in a development environment first, passes tests across services, and only then is promoted to production.

AI wrote much of the code, held to standards I wrote first. Each repository carries its own rules for the AI to follow, backed by a shared library of engineering, design and architecture standards. The speed came from AI. The fact that it holds together came from fifteen years of systems engineering. Four months from first commit to the App Store, £1,500 to build, and £250 a month to run. For comparison, a fellow founder spent £60,000 building their app with an offshore agency.

Members pass a biometric identity check before they can match. Subscriptions work across the App Store, Google Play and the web from one source of truth. Leora is live on the App Store and Google Play.

What I built it with

  • Swift 6 and SwiftUI
  • Kotlin and Jetpack Compose
  • React admin console and shared component library
  • Event-driven services on AWS Lambda, EventBridge, DynamoDB and SQS
  • Infrastructure as code with AWS CDK
  • Development to production promotion with tests across services
  • Biometric identity verification
  • AI-assisted delivery against written standards

How I can help

Four ways to work together, each priced on scope rather than hours. Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute call.

  • Technical audit

    Find out what you've really paid for. An independent review of your codebase, your agency or your technology choices, held to the standard a UK customer or investor will check you against.

    Who it is for
    Indian startups preparing to sell to UK customers or raise from UK investors, UK companies checking an offshore agency, and founders who are not technical.
    What you get
    A written report with every finding ranked by risk, a practical plan to fix them, and a call to walk you through it.
    How it runs
    Fixed fee, one to two weeks
  • Idea to launch

    From idea to the App Store, built the way I built Leora: fast, and on foundations made to stand up to investor due diligence.

    Who it is for
    Pre-seed and seed founders in the UK and India, and established businesses starting a new digital product.
    What you get
    A launched product, the infrastructure it runs on, and documentation a future team can pick up on day one.
    How it runs
    Fixed-scope phases, typically six to twelve weeks
  • Fractional CTO

    A senior technical leader in your corner, without a full-time executive salary. Roadmap, architecture, hiring, and the technical side of every investor and customer conversation, in the UK and India.

    Who it is for
    UK companies whose engineers are in India, Indian startups whose biggest customers are in the UK, and funded startups before they need a full-time CTO.
    What you get
    Technical decisions you can defend to a board, and a team that knows exactly what to build next.
    How it runs
    Monthly retainer, one to two days a week
  • Lean team setup

    A small team that delivers like a big one. I hire and set up your engineering team in India, the UK or across both, with clear ownership, the process and the AI workflows that multiply its output. I've led engineering teams in both countries: 14 engineers across three teams in the UK at Monterosa, and 15 to 20 in Bengaluru (Bangalore) for Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors.

    Who it is for
    UK companies building engineering in India for the first time, companies replacing an agency with a remote team they own, and teams split between the two countries.
    What you get
    The right people hired, ways of working in place, AI workflows set up, and a team that runs without me.
    How it runs
    Four to eight weeks, then handover or light ongoing oversight

How I use AI

AI lets one engineer do the work of a team. Systems engineering is what makes that safe to ship.

  • Architecture first, then acceleration

    I design the system: the services, the boundaries between them, the data and the ways it can fail. AI builds inside those lines, never across them.

  • Standards written before code

    Every repository carries written rules the AI must follow, backed by shared standards for code quality, design and architecture. The first draft already matches the house style.

  • Nothing ships unproven

    Typed code, automated tests and infrastructure as code in every service. Changes go to a development environment first, pass tests across services, and only then reach production.

Fifteen years of engineering

From cars to location data, fan engagement and fintech, then my own company.

  1. 2011 to 2019

    Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors

    Systems engineering

    Led specification and systems design for a multi-modal speech recognition platform, and spent five months in Bengaluru (Bangalore) leading an offshore development team of 15 to 20 engineers.

  2. 2019 to 2021

    GB Group

    Head of Integrations

    Led nine engineers and designed event-driven microservices on Kubernetes for Loqate, GBG's address verification and location data platform.

  3. 2021 to 2025

    Monterosa

    Engineering Lead, then Engineering Manager

    Led three cross-functional teams of 14 engineers building fan engagement web and native apps while the business grew five-fold. Built tooling that gave every developer back three to four hours a week.

  4. 2025 to now

    Leora Group

    Co-founder and CTO

    Designed and built the entire Leora platform: native apps, admin tools and 16 cloud services.

  5. 2026 to now

    Zopa Bank

    Engineering Manager

    Lead engineering for the decisioning technology behind lending at Zopa, the UK's leading unsecured personal loan provider, across personal loans and car finance.

About me

Chris Mitchell

I trained as a systems engineer in automotive, at Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors, where a specification is a promise and every failure mode is thought through before anything is built. I brought that habit into software, building platforms and leading engineering teams in location data, fan engagement, media and fintech. Today I lead the decisioning technology behind Zopa's personal loans and car finance.

Leora showed what that discipline is worth with AI in the loop: one engineer, a complete production platform. That is what I bring to founders. Senior judgement and hands-on delivery, without the cost of a large team.

I work between the UK and India, remotely day to day and in person when it matters. The work I do best crosses between them: UK companies building engineering teams in India, and Indian startups selling into the UK. India runs on one clock, so wherever you are in India, my mornings go on focused building and my afternoons overlap with the UK working day.

  • Chartered Engineer, Institution of Engineering and Technology
  • MEng Electronic Engineering, University of Exeter
  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
  • Speaker, AI Futures Day 2026, Manchester Digital Skills Festival

Tell me what you're building.

A 30-minute call is free and there is nothing to prepare. You will leave with at least one useful thing to do next, whether or not we work together.