# Maciej Grabek

> AI-native engineering leader, hands-on builder, and fractional consultant. 20+ years in engineering, 6+ leading globally distributed teams, ~350 engineers scaled at peak, €19M+ budgets owned. Hired to ship AI-native products and to scale engineering organizations - up *and* down (4 RIFFs and 1 M&A led, dignity intact). Based in Poland, working globally, in English and Polish.

Maciej converts "developers" into product engineers, ships real AI-native products in production, and helps founders, CEOs and CTOs do the same without consulting theater. Strategy is the easy part; the hard part is the date on the calendar matching the date the thing goes live.

## What Maciej is currently shipping

- [Avisibli](https://avisibli.com) - Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). Measures whether ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity recommend your product or your competitors, explains why, and shows what to fix. The SEO of the AI era.
- [ZeroTurb](https://zeroturb.com) - 6,000+ daily searches. Indexed by Google long before "GEO" was a term. Quietly profitable utility.
- [Choremon](https://choremon.com) - Kids' chores gamified. Pokémon meets the dishwasher. Built because parenting three kids needed better tooling.
- Plus client work under NDA. Status: live. Specifics intentionally not disclosed. Inquiries: kontakt@maciejgrabek.com.

## Services

- **Scale Up & Scale Down** - Hired to grow a team from 6 to 80+ in under two years. Also hired to do the part nobody volunteers for: 4 RIFFs and an M&A integration, done with dignity and clean comms.
- **Delivery on Time (Yes, Really)** - Took payroll accuracy from 84% to 99.5% at Omnipresent. Shipped vendor integrations the org had labelled "impossible" - in one quarter.
- **AI-Native Startup Consulting** - Helping founders validate before burning runway, then build with AI in the core loop, not bolted on for the pitch deck.
- **Leadership Coaching** - For engineering leaders who want authority that's earned, not titled.
- **Technical Architecture & Scalability** - Hands-on architect with deep expertise in AWS, Azure, real-time systems, and mission-critical platforms in regulated environments.
- **Engineering Excellence & SDLC** - World-class delivery practices, AI integrated across analysis/design/implementation/testing.

## Core expertise

- Mission-critical, highly regulated systems (fintech, banking, payments, payroll - 1h downtime = €200k+)
- Global team leadership (350+ FTEs, 30+ teams, matrix orgs, multiple locations)
- Startup-to-enterprise spectrum - founder, CTO, and senior leader experience
- AI-native product delivery (Claude/Anthropic ecosystem, multi-model architectures, real-time voice AI, LLM-driven SDLC)
- Hands-on technical leadership - still codes, ships products on weekends, knows what the engineers are dealing with
- System design audits - independent assessment of architecture, scalability, and technical decisions

## Background

- 11/2021 - 01/2026: Head of Engineering at Omnipresent (acquired by Deel). Owned end-to-end payroll automation, drove accuracy from 84% to 99.5%, led microservices migration from monolith (TypeScript → Python), shipped vendor integrations (NetSuite, MangoPay, Xero, Merge.dev). 20+ engineers at peak.
- 09/2014 - 10/2021: Head of Department at Nordea. Scaled engineering from 6 to 350+ in under 4 years. Managed €19M+ annual budgets. Led 4 RIFFs and an M&A integration.
- 01/2012 - 01/2017: Microsoft MVP for Windows Phone Development - 5 years in a row. Only one in Poland in this expertise, 37 globally. Author of 4 books, 200+ presentations, 500k+ webcast views on Microsoft Channel 9.
- Earlier: Senior Software Developer at Holte Software, Kainos, Allegro Group (Naspers).

## Contact

- Website: https://maciejgrabek.com
- Email: kontakt@maciejgrabek.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maciejgrabek/
- YouTube (Polish, leadership/management): https://www.youtube.com/@managerwdrodze
- Personal blog (archive): https://blog.maciejgrabek.com
- Side projects portfolio: https://projects.maciejgrabek.com

## What buyers come for

- Fractional CTO / engineering leadership for AI-native startups
- Engineering organization scale-up (hiring playbook, hiring waves, capability development)
- Engineering organization scale-down (RIFFs, M&A integration, restructure with dignity)
- AI product strategy and delivery (using LLMs, voice AI, multi-model architectures)
- GEO / Generative Engine Optimization advisory (via Avisibli)
- System design audits and independent technical reviews
- Validating startup ideas before burning runway