Matt Rkiouak
Founder of Hunger Mountain Intelligence, an independent technology practice based in Middlesex, Vermont. A software engineer with more than a decade across early-stage startups, State Street, and Google Cloud, working remotely with clients nationwide.
A decade building production systems.
Matt Rkiouak has spent more than a decade building production software — systems that handle real traffic, real money, and real consequences. He began in network-performance engineering at OPNET Technologies, Riverbed Technology, and Dynatrace, each an early-stage company that reached a profitable exit.
He moved into enterprise engineering at State Street, where he led internal Kubernetes adoption, designed blockchain custody systems, and contributed to the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Fabric, working across distributed, multinational teams. He was a founding engineer at Manetu, building a data-privacy platform end to end, and the first Staff+ engineer at Reify Health, where his work contributed to the company's Series C and D rounds and a valuation of roughly $5 billion.
At Google Cloud he launched the HD Voices text-to-speech API and architected Chirp 3, a foundation-model transcription system; both generated tens of millions of dollars in new revenue in their first year. He is now at ScalePost, leading engineering for media-monitoring and affiliate-attribution products.
He runs Hunger Mountain Intelligence from Middlesex, Vermont, where he serves on the town Budget Committee and built middlesexbudget.org, an independent budget-transparency tool. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Boston University.
Recent years.
Engineering at scale
Building production systems for large engineering organizations, including State Street and Google Cloud, working remotely across distributed teams.
Relocated to Vermont
Moved to Middlesex, Vermont (population roughly 1,800) and began working independently.
Independent consulting
Started taking on automation, web, and IT projects, and built an independent budget-transparency site for the town.
Hunger Mountain Intelligence
Consolidated the consultancy, writing, civic work, and Ki Storygen under a single brand.
The practice and its projects.
Each operates independently under the Hunger Mountain Intelligence brand.
Hunger Mountain Intelligence
Fixed-price automation, web, and IT consulting for small businesses and teams.
Visit consulting →Middlesex Budget
An independent guide to the Middlesex town budget, with charts, comparisons, and open data.
Visit civic →Musings
Notes on technology and building software.
Read the blog →Ki Storygen
A story engine for worldbuilders: create characters and places, then generate stories that draw on them.
Open the labs →How the work is done.
Plain language
Work is explained in clear terms, without jargon.
Fixed scope and price
Scope and cost are agreed before work begins. No hourly billing.
Built to ship
Projects are scoped to deliver; most focused work goes live in about a week.
Common Questions
Frequently asked
How do I know if I need this?
If you're making a technical decision that will shape the next year of your business — choosing an approach, hiring engineers, rebuilding a system — and you don't have a senior technical leader in-house to gut-check it, that's when fractional help pays for itself. The cost of a wrong architecture or bad vendor choice dwarfs the cost of getting the right advice early.
What does working together look like week to week?
For scoped projects, I work independently on defined deliverables with regular updates and a clear handoff. For retainers, I join your team directly: standups, pull requests, architecture decisions, mentoring. Communication is direct and frequent.
Is this affordable for a company our size?
I work with startups and small teams as well as larger organizations. The fractional model exists because most growing companies need senior technical leadership but can't justify a full-time CTO. Projects are scoped to what you actually need.
Contact.
For consulting inquiries, or questions about any of the projects above.