Services · Fractional CTO
A senior technical partner for founder-led startups.
A fractional CTO gives you the architectural judgement, hiring instincts, and shipping discipline of a full time CTO at a fraction of the burn. We work with a small number of founders at a time, embed in your tooling, and treat your roadmap like our own.
What founders actually need from a CTO
Most early stage founders do not need a full time CTO. They need three things a CTO normally provides: a person who can make load bearing technical decisions and live with the consequences, a person who can hire and assess other engineers without flinching, and a person who can hold a product roadmap against reality. A fractional CTO covers those three responsibilities without adding a six figure salary, equity grant, and benefits load to a company that is still proving itself.
The failure mode is hiring a senior engineer with a CTO title. They will write good code and avoid the rest. The job is the rest. Hiring decisions, infrastructure tradeoffs, vendor selection, security posture, the moment to stop polishing the MVP and ship it. Those choices compound. The wrong call on auth in month two costs four engineer weeks in month nine.
What a fractional CTO does, week to week
A typical week with us looks like this. Two scheduled blocks for roadmap and architecture, usually Monday and Thursday. Async code review on every meaningful pull request, with written reasoning on why a pattern is being rejected or accepted. One hiring touch point: reviewing a candidate, sitting on a panel, or drafting a job spec. Vendor and stack decisions written up in plain language so the rest of the team can refer to them later.
We do not run standups. We do not write JIRA tickets for engineers who can write their own. We push hard on the few decisions that matter and stay out of the dozens that do not. If your engineering team needs a manager, you do not need us, you need a manager.
When to hire fractional vs full time
Hire fractional when you have between zero and six engineers, you are pre Series A or early post seed, and the technical decisions in front of you outpace your in house seniority. Hire full time when you are scaling past eight engineers, your product has clear traction, you can afford a six figure base plus equity, and you need a person whose calendar is your calendar.
We tell founders to plan for a fractional to full time transition. We help write the spec, sit on the interview loop, and hand off cleanly. We have done this enough times that the handoff is part of the engagement, not an afterthought.
Our process
The first thirty days is an audit and triage. We read the codebase, talk to every engineer on the team, look at the infra bill, and rank the top ten risks. By day thirty we deliver a written technical assessment with a prioritised plan. The next sixty days is execution: pulling the worst splinters, putting a hiring plan in place, and stabilising the parts of the stack that are blocking the roadmap. After ninety days we are operating: weekly architecture, monthly written updates, ongoing hiring support.
We work in your tools. Linear, GitHub, Notion, Slack, whatever you already use. We do not bring a consulting deck or a custom dashboard you will abandon in six weeks.
Who we work with
Founder led teams between pre seed and Series A. Sectors we know well: SaaS products, consumer and B2B mobile apps, marketplaces, and AI native products where a Fractional AI Officer engagement may run in parallel. We do not take on regulated medical, defence, or trading firm engagements.
We hold six slots at a time across the studio. When all six are occupied, the intake closes until one completes. The next intake currently opens at the end of Q3 2026.
FAQ
Common questions
How many hours per week does a fractional CTO commit?+
Typical engagements range from 8 to 20 hours per week. We block recurring time for strategy, code review, and hiring, plus async availability for unblockers. We do not stretch across more than two engagements at once.
Do you write code, or only advise?+
Both. The default fractional CTO engagement includes hands on code review, architecture decisions in writing, and selective implementation of high risk components such as auth, billing, infra, or AI plumbing. We do not pretend strategy can be separated from craft.
When should I hire a full time CTO instead?+
When you have raised a Series A or larger round, are scaling past 8 engineers, or the technical surface area is so wide that part time leadership cannot keep up. We will tell you when that line is approaching and help you hire a replacement.
What is the minimum engagement length?+
Three months. The first thirty days is mostly listening, auditing, and removing the worst load bearing pain. Real direction setting starts around week four.
How does pricing work?+
Flat monthly retainer. Cash, equity, or a blend. We discuss the shape on the first call. There is no hourly invoicing, no surprise add ons, and no agency markups.
Can you also help with AI strategy?+
Yes. If AI is a meaningful part of your roadmap, we can either fold AI work into the fractional CTO scope or pair with our Fractional AI Officer engagement for deeper model and eval work.
Related
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Next step
Need a fractional CTO this quarter?
Six slots at a time across the studio. Tell us where you are in the build and what is currently blocking you. We reply from a real inbox within two business days.