Engineers Who Build Things
We're not a consulting firm that added AI to its services page. We're a team of senior engineers and architects who've spent decades building enterprise platforms — and the last three years exclusively focused on making AI work at scale.
Fractal Shift was founded on a simple observation: the organizations that talk most about AI transformation are rarely the ones doing the engineering to make it work.
We saw Fortune 500 companies spending millions on AI strategy decks that gathered dust. Teams trained on generic AI concepts but unable to solve their specific problems. Modernization projects that "lift and shift" to the cloud without actually modernizing anything.
We started Fractal Shift because we believed there was a better way. A way that starts with engineering, not consulting. That builds real systems, not recommendations. That aligns our success with our clients' outcomes, not with billable hours.
Every member of our team is a senior engineer or architect. Many of us built the platforms at AWS that enterprises now run on. We've led transformations at organizations ranging from $250M mid-market companies to $80B global enterprises. And for the last three years, we've been exclusively focused on one thing: making AI actually work in production at enterprise scale.
We build. We ship. We measure. That's it.
The Creed
Five principles that guide every decision we make — from how we price to who we hire to what projects we take on.
We Build. We Don't Advise.
No strategy decks. No "recommended next steps." We write code, ship systems, and measure outcomes. If it doesn't run in production, it doesn't count. Every engagement ends with working software, not a PowerPoint.
Aligned Incentives Only.
We eat our own cooking. Value-share pricing means we succeed when you succeed — not when we bill more hours. If we don't deliver verified, measurable outcomes, we don't get paid. No exceptions.
Senior People. No Bench.
Every person on your project is a senior engineer or architect with platform experience at scale. No juniors learning on your dime. No bait-and-switch. We don't have a "bench" — we have a small team of people who've already done this.
Radical Transparency.
We'll tell you if your project is doomed. We'll tell you if you're wasting money. We'll tell you if a $50K solution solves the problem better than a $500K one. Brutal honesty beats billable hours every time.
Measured Outcomes. Always.
Every engagement has clear, quantifiable success metrics defined upfront. Revenue impact, cost savings, velocity improvements — documented, verified, and independently auditable. If we can't measure it, we don't claim it.
Why Not The Alternatives?
AI transformation is too important to get wrong. Here's why most firms fall short — and how we're different.
Legacy Consultancies
The Big 4 added "AI" to their website in 2023. They'll send you 40 PowerPoint decks, a training program, and a junior team that Googles GPT-4 syntax in the bathroom.
AI-Native Startups
Great at demos. Terrible at enterprise constraints. They'll build you a RAG system that works beautifully — until you try to integrate it with your 15-year-old Oracle ERP.
Product Vendors (Palantir, Databricks, etc.)
They'll sell you their platform and send "solutions engineers" to implement it. Problem: their job is to maximize platform spend, not solve your problem efficiently.
FractalShift (Us)
We're senior engineers who built the platforms enterprises run on. We have ML depth *and* enterprise architecture experience. We align on outcomes, not hours. We build, ship, measure — then hand off to your team.
Leadership
Ethan Chang
CEO
Former AWS. Enterprise sales and technical leadership across 100+ transformations — from $250M mid-market companies to $80B global enterprises. Ethan built and sold enterprise solutions at the platforms others now consult on.
Small team. Senior people. No bench. Every person staffed on your project is a senior engineer or architect with deep platform experience. We don't hire juniors and train them on your project. We bring people who've already done this — at scale.
Want to work with engineers who've actually done this?
Start with a free AI Modernization Audit.