About
I'm Mike Buzzetti, a fractional CTO with 25-plus years across infrastructure, cloud, security, and distributed systems. I have spent most of that time helping organizations build scalable, reliable systems and the teams that run them.
My background is enterprise infrastructure, cloud computing, security, and distributed systems at serious scale. That is the lens I use when helping growing teams make technical decisions when they actually matter.
I focus that work on mental and behavioral health. Platforms where clinical and operational reality meets cloud engineering, and where infrastructure and compliance (HIPAA-aligned operations, logging and access evidence, vendor and program readiness) have to be credible... not a checklist bolted on at the end of a release train.
Key Achievements
Most of my career has been complex technical work at scale, and a long shift from individual contributor toward force multiplication (aligning engineering with the business, mentoring, scaling teams). A few concrete examples:
- Scaled subscription infrastructure to billions: Architected and managed the technical systems powering a subscription business handling millions of active subscriptions and processing billions of dollars in annual revenue. Built resilient, fault-tolerant systems that maintained uptime while handling massive transaction volumes and complex billing scenarios.
- Established enterprise architecture governance: Partnered with C-level executives to create and lead an architecture community of practice that democratized technical decision-making. Designed governance frameworks that ensured all engineering voices were heard in strategic architectural choices, resulting in better-aligned technology investments and improved cross-team collaboration.
- Built teams that operate independently: Worked with management, product, and design to build engineering teams around specific products, services, or offerings. Those teams were built to support direct business needs and deliver value quickly while keeping overall architecture stability and compliance.
- Designed cloud-native systems for Fortune 500 companies: Architected and delivered cloud-based distributed systems for numerous large enterprises, helping them migrate from legacy infrastructure to scalable, cost-effective cloud architectures. Designed systems handling petabytes of data, serving millions of users, and processing millions of transactions per day.
- Built enterprise-grade compliance systems: Created CI/CD pipelines and delivery systems from the ground up, compliant with SOX and PCI DSS. Designed automated compliance validation, audit trails, and security controls that enabled secure, auditable software delivery while maintaining development velocity. These systems passed rigorous external audits and supported regulated financial and payment processing operations.
- Created a highly available message delivery system: Led a small team to design, build, and operate a cross-geography messaging system. It delivered millions of messages per day with a small footprint and low overhead.
- Launched engineer-led mentorship program at scale: Designed and built a comprehensive mentorship program that empowered engineers to lead their own professional development. Created structured frameworks for mentor-mentee matching, goal setting, and skill development that scaled to over 200 participants across multiple engineering teams. The program fostered a culture of continuous learning, accelerated career growth, and improved retention by ensuring every engineer had access to guidance and technical leadership development.
- Authored authoritative technical publications: Wrote multiple IBM Redbooks on cloud deployment, infrastructure as a service, and system architecture that became reference material for enterprise engineering teams worldwide. Those books documented best practices, architectural patterns, and implementation strategies that helped organizations adopt cloud technologies and build scalable distributed systems.
Education & Teaching
I hold a BS in Computer Science from Clarkson University, where I designed and built a physical Linux and open-source lab from the ground up. That hands-on learning environment helped faculty and students work through complex systems engineering ideas by experimenting directly. The lab became a cornerstone of the computer science program.
I have also taught at Marist College (now Marist University). I still stay current on software engineering, infrastructure, and team leadership.