Technology Strategy
Roadmaps, build-vs-buy calls, and architecture aligned to business goals — not the other way around.
Fractional CTO · Product Engineering
Technical leadership that ships real products
Derah Software Solutions gives growing companies senior technology leadership without the full-time cost — backed by hands-on experience building and running production SaaS, including FastWave.
Builder of FastWaveBased in Ireland · Working globally20+ years in production SaaS
01 — Services
Senior technology leadership, on your terms
Architecture & Delivery
Pragmatic system design that gets you to market fast without piling up tech debt you'll pay for later.
Team Building & Mentoring
Hiring engineers, shaping process, and mentoring leads so the team keeps shipping when I step back.
Technical Due Diligence
Independent codebase, infrastructure, and team assessments for investors and acquirers.
SaaS & Payments Expertise
Subscriptions, online payments, invoicing, and reconciliation — the real-world plumbing done right.
MVP to Production
Take a prototype through to a reliable, monitored production system your customers can trust.
AI Adoption & Integration
Practical AI: adopting it for productivity, building it into products, and doing both in environments where you have to prove it works.
02 — Who I work with
From first prototype to due diligence — the engagement changes shape depending on where you are.
Startups
Getting v1 built and into customers' hands.
- MVP scoping and build
- Tech stack and architecture decisions
- Acting technical co-founder
- Pitch and investor support
Scaleups
Outgrowing the systems and team that got you here.
- Architecture reviews and replatforming
- Hiring and mentoring engineers
- Delivery process that keeps shipping
- Fractional CTO leadership
Regulated industries
Where 'it works' isn't enough — you have to prove it.
- Life sciences and regulated SaaS experience
- Compliance-aware architecture and validation
- AI adoption in regulated environments
- Vendor and platform assessment
Investors
An honest technical read before or after the cheque.
- Technical due diligence reports
- Portfolio company support
- Post-investment technical mentoring
- Interim technical leadership
03 — Case study
FastWave — built and run by Derah Software
FastWave is a full-stack SaaS platform for swimming competition entry management, live at fastwave.app. It's proof I build products — not just advise on them.
- 258
- Clubs
- 7,743
- Swimmers
- 28,864
- Entries processed
- Online entry management with qualification checking & fee calculation
- Automatic heat sheets & lane assignments with Hytek/Ares/PDF export
- Timing system integration with instant results
- Full SDIF v3.0 import/export
- Swimming Ireland database integration
- Online card payments, invoicing & reconciliation
Backend
Python 3.13 · FastAPI · SQLAlchemy 2.0 · Alembic · Neon Postgres · Stripe Connect · JWT auth
Frontend
React · Vite · TanStack Query · TypeScript client generated from OpenAPI
Delivery
CI/CD pipeline with feature-branch workflow, automated tests, and SemVer releases
fastwave.app
fastwave.app
fastwave.app
04 — How I work
Engagement models that fit the stage you're at
A few hours per month
Advisory
Strategy sessions, architecture reviews, and a senior sounding board for your founders and lead engineers.
Most popular
1–2 days per week
Fractional CTO
Embedded leadership owning roadmap, team, and delivery — the senior technology voice at the table.
Fixed scope
Project Delivery
Due diligence reports, MVP builds, migrations, and rescue missions — bounded outcomes, senior hands.
05 — Who you're working with
Dermot Hayes
Founder, Derah Software Solutions
I've spent 20+ years building software as an engineer, architect, and product owner — much of it in life sciences and regulated environments, where systems don't just have to work, they have to be proven to work.
FastWave is my own product: a full-stack SaaS platform for swimming competition management, running live at fastwave.app with real entries, real payments, and real deadlines every competition weekend. It keeps me honest — I don't recommend architecture I wouldn't run in production myself.
Today I work with founders, scale-ups, and investors as a fractional CTO: comfortable in the boardroom and the codebase, and happiest when I'm in both in the same week.
Taking on 1–2 new clients for Q3 2026
Let's talk about your technology
Book a free 30-minute call — it usually surfaces at least one thing worth fixing.