The AI Manager, built by people who did the job by hand

Solidmatics comes out of management consulting, fractional CTO work, and system architecture. Two decades of walking into companies and working out what was actually going on. Chief does that read now, on a schedule. When it turns up something that needs a person, we are still those people.

Vygandas Pliasas working through a delivery problem on a whiteboard

Where this came from

The read was always the valuable part

Every consulting engagement opened the same way. A week of archaeology. Tickets, chat scrolled back to March, commit history, a few standups, then a conversation where the founder hears what nobody inside the company had put together yet.

That week was the work. It was also the part that never scaled, and it went stale about a month after we handed it over. So we built it into software. Chief connects to the tools a company already runs on and walks backwards from an outcome to where it actually started, every week instead of once per audit.

The consulting did not stop. It is where the product got its judgment about what counts as a signal and what is noise, and it is still what we sell when a company needs someone in the room rather than a report in the inbox.

Leadership

Two people run this

We met at Rivile, an ERP and accounting platform. Vygandas was there as fractional head of engineering, Kiril was the software architect. A bit over half a year of untangling critical platform problems side by side, day to day. That is the vetting.

CEO

Vygandas Pliasas

Product, strategy, and the client side

Writing code and running engineering teams since 2006. Engineering manager, R&D manager, head of engineering, CTO, management consultant, in roughly that order. Healthcare software inside EU MDR and FDA regulated environments, LLM products shipped end to end, teams built from the first hire and a few broken ones turned around. He still reviews architecture and still sits in on hiring.

20+ years in engineering and management
MSc Computer Software Engineering
Fractional CTO and CPO across the US and EU
AI and LLM products in production

CTO

Kiril Nugmanov

Architecture and the engine underneath

Twenty years in IT, most of it deep in the JVM and in data. Oracle Certified Master for Java EE Enterprise Architect, AWS on the infrastructure side, and a degree in data mining that turned out to be more relevant than anyone expected. He owns how Chief ingests a company tool stack and turns years of scattered activity into something a model can reason over.

20+ years in IT and engineering leadership
MSc Data Mining
Oracle Certified Master, Java EE Enterprise Architect
AWS Certified Developer, Associate

Human expertise

When you need a person, not a report

The product handles the read. These are the parts that still want someone who has done it before, and they are the same services the product was built out of.

Fractional CTO and CPO

Someone senior making the architecture and hiring calls while you run the company. Starts in days, not a quarter.

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AI and LLM development

Where AI actually pays off inside your product, and what to skip. We ship this ourselves, so the advice comes with scars.

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Cloud, security, and infrastructure

AWS architecture, spend that got away from you, IAM nobody has looked at in two years, and the recovery plan you do not have yet.

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Hiring and team building

Screening that filters for people who can do the work, and a pipeline your team can still run after we leave.

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Partners

Specialists we bring in

Two people we have delivered with before. They join on the infrastructure and architecture work when a client needs that depth.

Jean-Baptiste Graindorge

Cloud infrastructure and security

Spent time inside AWS as a technical account manager before going back to hands-on work, and has held CISO roles since. Replaced 250+ IAM keys with roles across production and ran EC2 to Fargate migrations with full IaC coverage.

AWS Security Specialty
20+ years
DevSecOps and FinOps

Yohan Fougeray

Solutions architecture

Seven years owning the architecture across 15+ projects at one organization: e-commerce, payments, CRM integrations, and data pipelines moving hundreds of millions of records. Designed infrastructure spanning 40+ AWS accounts in Terraform.

AWS Solutions Architect
Microservices and event-driven
10+ years

Track record

The work behind it

Twenty years of running engineering and product. Not a CV. The reason the product knows what to look for.

2006

Since

writing code and leading engineering teams

200+

Engineers

coached and mentored

12+

Teams

built from the first hire

Person orgs

restructured and turned around

99.99%

Uptime

on systems we have architected

LLM products

In production

including pre-training pipelines and multi-agent systems

What People Say

Vygandas was a great technical partner and support helping as I built out the MVP for my SAAS business. He was patient and offered tons of value as we architectured the initial tech stack!Read more →

Shane Dutka

Founder & CEO

Vygandas is great to work with and brings a depth and breadth of experience. He's thoughtful and detail-oriented and is able to switch quickly from big-picture planning to granular project management.Read more →

Dean Levitt

Marketing

I had the pleasure of working with Jean Baptiste, and I can confidently say that he is an exceptional DevOps professional with extensive expertise in AWS. He is highly knowledgeable about AWS services and has a deep understanding of how to architect, deploy, and manage applications on the AWS platform. His problem-solving abilities are second to none, and he consistently delivers effective solutions to complex challenges using AWS tools and technologies. Jean Baptiste's ability to integrate his solutions with AWS is incredibly efficient, and he always provides detailed plans for executing projects quickly. I highly recommend his services to anyone seeking a top-notch DevOps specialist with AWS expertise.Read more →

Sévag Chichmanian

AWS Cloud Architect & DevOps

Great professional and team leader. Very calm and friendly professional. Feels like everything will be ok, all the time. This helps maintain the team morale in the right place. When calling him to a Design Brainstorming or Process, he is the one that provides the boldest ideas. I really hope we get to work together again in the future.Read more →

ABF

André B. Finageiv

Renewable Energy APM

Vygandas is a great leader & manager with deep knowledge & experience in many different areas -- marketing, programming, management, sales, etc. I have worked closely with him for 6 months on a day-to-day basis and have only the best things to say. He made sure that our team runs proficiently and performs consistent results. Vygandas is an ambitious, hard-working and results-oriented leader. The thing I loved the most about working with him is that he has an easy-going attitude and doesn't resist going the extra mile when sharing his professional knowledge with co-workers.Read more →

Klaidas Gevorkian

Product Owner at Trafi

I was lucky to be the Team Lead that hired Vygandas into Toptal. From the interviews he was impressive in the nicest way: calm, friendly, very intelligent, and communicates very well. Once at the company, he continuously did great work. Yes, he is an excellent engineer. At the same time he can work with people superbly, is a great listener, can organize thoughts and priorities, and is patient. To top it off, Vygandas is always positive and uplifting. After I departed Toptal, he took over my position as Team Lead and it worked out very well for everyone involved. Vygandas can work at any level of an organization and excel.Read more →

Gustavo Saiani

Senior Applied AI Engineer

Shane Dutka

Founder & CEO

Dean Levitt

Marketing

Sévag Chichmanian

AWS Cloud Architect & DevOps

ABF

André B. Finageiv

Renewable Energy APM

Klaidas Gevorkian

Product Owner at Trafi

Gustavo Saiani

Senior Applied AI Engineer

Vygandas and I worked together on growth initiatives, primarily on roadmapping and prioritization. Vygandas does a great job in managing his engineering team and collaborating across the engineering organization to make sure that his team works on high impact projects. While I only worked with Vygandas for a few months, I enjoyed his leadership style and hands-on approach to scoping.Read more →

Andrew Reagan

Fractional Product Leader

I worked closely with Vygandas on a day-to-day basis as the product manager of the team he managed. We frequently discussed ways to optimize the team and to prioritize features. It was truly a pleasure working alongside Vygandas as he will go above and beyond to support his team. He excels when it comes to capacity planning and providing high-level estimates on LOE for the initiatives on the roadmap. His management style is pretty straightforward - ensure that everyone is equipped to succeed. This includes removing blockers, researching the unknowns, and getting the right people in the room. This mentality is the reason for the success of the team, why his direct reports thrived and how the Product team was able to manage stakeholders and expectations. I would highly recommend Vygandas for a management position at any company that requires building strong teams and effective, strategic planning.Read more →

Stevy Cheung

Senior Product Manager

Vygandas was employee #1 of our Lithuania branch, and his hard work was crucial in getting the new office and team up and running.Read more →

Sune Westphalen

Former CTO, Velocity Black

Vygandas is a very creative person who knows how to materialize complex ideas into reality easily. It's because he has strong IT background and management skills which let him to see end picture in the beginning of new project. Vygandas comes up with creative solutions to difficult problems and know how to manage all process to seek best result on time.Read more →

Gerdas Giedrimas

AI Implementation Specialist

Je recommande vivement Jean-Baptiste en tant que DevOps. J'ai eu le plaisir de travailler avec lui pendant plusieurs années, et j'ai été impressionnée par son expertise en matière d'automatisation, de développement et de déploiement d'applications. Jean-Baptiste est un collaborateur exceptionnel qui a la capacité de travailler en étroite collaboration avec les équipes de développement et d'exploitation pour assurer une transition fluide vers la production. Sa connaissance approfondie de l'écosystème DevOps et de ses outils a été inestimable pour la réussite de nos projets. Je recommande vivement Jean-Baptiste à toute entreprise cherchant à mettre en place des pratiques DevOps efficaces et efficientes. Son expertise technique et sa capacité à travailler en collaboration font de lui un atout précieux pour toute équipe de développement.Read more →

Marine Demarthe

Project Manager & HR

Andrew Reagan

Fractional Product Leader

Stevy Cheung

Senior Product Manager

Vygandas was employee #1 of our Lithuania branch, and his hard work was crucial in getting the new office and team up and running.Read more →

Sune Westphalen

Former CTO, Velocity Black

Gerdas Giedrimas

AI Implementation Specialist

Marine Demarthe

Project Manager & HR

Ready to Talk?

If you want to see what the product reads out of your tools, start there. If you would rather have a person in the room first, that works too.

30 minutes. No pitch. An honest take on whether we can help.

Schedule a Call