Fractional CTO
Senior technical leadership for companies that need it now and can't yet justify a full-time hire.
A full-time CTO is a nine-month search and a six-figure commitment. Most companies need the judgment long before they can justify the salary — and the decisions being deferred in the meantime are exactly the expensive ones: the stack, the architecture, the first engineering hires.
A fractional CTO owns those decisions with you — part-time, hands-on, and accountable — then hands off cleanly when you're ready for someone permanent.
— What's covered
The work itself.
Architecture and technical strategy
System design, build-versus-buy calls, and keeping the stack small enough that one team can hold all of it in their heads.
Hiring and mentoring engineers
Scoping the roles, running the technical interviews, onboarding, and coaching the people you hire so that they stay.
Delivery, CI/CD, and quality
Code review, testing, deployment pipelines, and an engineering cadence that produces predictable weeks instead of heroic ones.
Security and privacy posture
Authentication, secrets handling, data retention, and the compliance questions your first enterprise customer is going to ask.
— Fit
Whether this is for you.
This is probably a fit if
- You're a non-technical founder making technical decisions you have no way to evaluate.
- You're about to hire your first engineers and have nobody qualified to interview them.
- Contractors or an agency are building your product, and no one on your side is reviewing the work.
- Your team ships, but slowly, and nobody can say precisely why.
It's probably not if
- You want someone to write all the code. That's MVP development, or a hire — not this.
- You want a name on the website for a fundraise. We decline those.
— How it works
What an engagement looks like.
Start with a fit call
We look at where you actually are and say plainly whether you need a fractional CTO, a contractor, or a hire. Sometimes the honest answer is none of the above.
A fixed weekly commitment
Typically one to two days a week on a monthly retainer, with a 30-day out. Enough to own decisions, not so much that you're funding a full-time seat.
Plan the exit from day one
The goal is a permanent technical leader and a clean handover — documented decisions, a working team, and no dependency on us.
— FAQ
Fractional CTO, answered.
Tell us what you're building.
A few sentences is enough. We read every message ourselves, reply to every serious inquiry within two business days, and we'll be straight with you about whether we're the right fit.
Get in touch