Available for Hire

Embedded senior IC capacity for Bristol product and agency teams.

I am Mike Karthauser. I am available to hire as a senior individual contributor through Automica Labs. You get a named engineer who works across the full delivery cycle: design input, implementation, quality assurance, and deployment. Zero-friction integration for agency teams, no pre-packaged engagement, no slide deck.

Whether it is a three-month architectural cleanup or joining a high-performing team as a long-term Lead or Staff IC, I am looking for the right room, not just a contract. Technical Design Authority within your squad is on the table if that is what the team needs.

Why teams engage this way

  • Immediate availability: senior capacity now, not after a three-month recruitment cycle.
  • Minimal on-ramp: I slot into your squad, tooling, and ceremonies without a lengthy induction programme.
  • Integrates with your team: same board, repo, and rituals as everyone else; senior capacity that strengthens the squad rather than sitting alongside it.
  • Track record and breadth: 25+ years across product types, stacks, and delivery models; one person who has seen most problems before.
  • Commercial flexibility: short-term B2B commitments via Automica Labs, outside permanent headcount, PAYE, and typical IR35 employment structures.

Good fit if you need

  • Squad force multiplier: embedded in your squad, not a competing agency.
  • Full-stack coverage: design, dev, QA, and DevOps without coordinating separate contractors.
  • Design authority: senior coverage in a team that needs one.
  • No management overhead: Staff-level architectural wisdom through code, standards, and pairing, not line management or running ceremonies.
  • Legacy modernisation: modernise a legacy codebase or rescue a project stalled by technical debt.
  • End-to-end ownership: own a feature from wireframe to production release.

How I work

  • Embedded capacity: from focused cleanups to long-term Lead or Staff IC within your squad.
  • B2B engagement: contracted and invoiced via Automica Labs on agreed milestones; supplier, not payroll hire.
  • Milestone cadence: scoped goals, definition of done, then exit cleanly or continue on the next problem.
  • Bristol community: Bristol-based, hybrid-ready. Regular attendee and contributor at local meetups, including PHP South West (speaker and attendee).

25+ Years in Commercial Companies

Full-stack delivery across design, development, QA, and DevOps.

More than two decades inside commercial product teams: SaaS platforms, ecommerce, logistics, and customer-facing systems where downtime costs money and technical debt compounds fast. That span includes working with designers on user flows, writing and maintaining test suites, building deployment pipelines, and shipping the code in between. Not siloed into one discipline.

  • Judgement under real constraints: budgets, deadlines, incomplete requirements.
  • Autonomy in agency environments: comfortable in hybrid, engineering-led teams.
  • Product buy-in: committed to the vision, not just ticket throughput.
  • Prototype to production: experience where most teams stall, and how to close the gap.

Full Stack, End to End

Polyglot and T-shaped across the disciplines that get software shipped.

I work across the full delivery cycle, not just one layer. That means fewer handoffs, faster decisions, and one senior person accountable from design input through to production.

Design

  • Wireframes to workable UI
  • UX flows and interaction design
  • Translating product intent into buildable interfaces
  • Collaboration with designers and stakeholders

Development

  • PHP / Laravel, Python, Vue / Nuxt, Flutter
  • API design, services, and client integration
  • Legacy refactors and system architecture
  • Polyglot: right tool for the problem

QA

  • TDD-first: Pest, PHPUnit, Pytest, Vitest
  • Test strategy and acceptance criteria
  • Automated suites and regression coverage
  • UAT support and release sign-off

DevOps

  • CI/CD pipelines and release hygiene
  • Staging, deployment, and rollback
  • Observability and production hardening
  • AWS fundamentals and infrastructure hygiene

IP, Confidentiality, and AI-Optimised Delivery

Structured for agency and product teams who need speed without giving up control.

Your IP stays yours

  • Your terms: work under your contracts, NDAs, and confidentiality terms as standard.
  • Your deliverables: all code, designs, and deliverables belong to you; nothing reused for other clients.
  • Your infrastructure: development inside your repositories, pipelines, and access controls.

AI-optimised, review-led workflows

  • Guardrailed assistance: agent-assisted development within your repo, standards, and guardrails.
  • Human-led review: faster iteration on boilerplate, tests, and refactors; architecture and PR review stay human-led.
  • Transparent tooling: clear about what runs locally, what touches your code, and what never leaves your environment.
  • Maintainable speed: speed gains that do not trade away readability or operability.

Technical Abilities

Delivering working software your team and customers can rely on.

Quality that protects momentum: Test strategy, automated suites, and CI/CD so releases stay safe as the product grows.

Operability built in: Pipelines, observability, and deployment hygiene so what ships can be run and supported.

Public work on GitHub. Full history on LinkedIn.

Working Model

Parachute in, integrate, deliver to definition of done, transfer knowledge, then out or on to the next milestone.

Engagements are structured around clear goals, not open-ended dependency. You get senior leverage without someone who becomes hard to remove after the initial contract term.

Delivery and project management

  • Your ceremonies: planning, stand-ups, refinement, and retros in Agile, Scrum, or Kanban setups.
  • Backlog literacy: work from epics and stories with clear acceptance criteria and definition of done.
  • Feature ownership: own slices from design input through to production release, completed to agreed DoD.
  • Code review and mentoring: review PRs, unblock developers, and pair with junior and mid-level engineers.

Offramp and continuity

  • Knowledge transfer: document decisions, patterns, and runbooks so the team owns what ships.
  • No sticky dependency: I do not hoard context, access, or undocumented shortcuts.
  • Milestone boundaries: integrate, define goals, deliver to acceptance criteria, then exit cleanly or continue on the next problem.
  • Engineering hygiene: CI/CD, observability, and documentation that reduce technical debt rather than accrue it.

Contact Mike Karthauser

If you need an embedded senior full-stack IC with 25+ years across design, development, QA, and DevOps, get in touch with Mike Karthauser.

Happy to grab a coffee at any of the Bristol hubs to talk shop before we commit to anything formal.