Services

Fractional CTO

Part-time technical leadership. 16 hours a month of ongoing judgement: architecture decisions, vendor and quote evaluation, hiring and priorities. For companies that need technical leadership and are not big enough for a CTO on payroll.

Who it is for

Companies of 10 to 60 people with a small technical team or an outside vendor, and nobody above them deciding with judgement: what gets built, what gets bought, who gets hired and how much it should cost.

It does not replace a development team: it leads one. If something also needs building, that is contracted as a separate project with its own scope and price.

How we work

16 hours a month

Spread as each month needs. Sessions with the team or the vendor: priorities, pending decisions, review of what was delivered. And work of our own: architecture, proposal reviews, interviews.

Between sessions

Direct access for what cannot wait. An architecture decision or a vendor quote does not get put off for a month.

Every quarter

A written review of infrastructure and vendor costs for whoever runs the company.

Processes that stay

Sprints, metrics, observability and controlled deployments that the team keeps even after the engagement ends.

Scope

What it does not include is here, not in the small print.

What it includes

  • 16 hours a month, split between sessions with the team and work of our own
  • Architecture and build-or-buy decisions
  • Evaluation of vendors, proposals and quotes
  • Technical interviews when hiring
  • Quarterly review of infrastructure costs
  • Direct access between sessions for urgent matters

What it does not include

  • Development. Building something is a project with its own scope and price
  • Permanent availability or on-call duty
  • Day-to-day people management: leave, holidays, reviews
  • Liability as a company director or officer

Terms

Duration
Monthly, no lock-in. To end it, one month's notice from either side.
Time
16 hours a month in the base price, spread as the month needs. More hours by agreement in advance; never invoiced by surprise.
Exclusivity
We do not work for two directly competing companies at the same time. If the situation arises, we say so.
Payment
Monthly, in advance.

A success story

Anonymised, with the role we played in it.

Before200 usersand the platform went down, on three instances
Consultancy and technical leadership

From firefighting to growing with method

Sprints and metrics, observability, CI/CD and controlled deployments; tens of thousands of lines refactored and over 3,000 tests; a vendor moved to pay-as-you-go and the cloud right-sized; mobile apps from scratch, the first hire and AI-assisted processes.

After4,000 usersin load tests on a single instance that scales itself

Frequently asked questions

What is a fractional CTO?

Technical leadership without a CTO on payroll: 16 hours a month of judgement on architecture, vendors, hiring and priorities, with direct access for anything that cannot wait.

What if a month needs more hours?

They are agreed in advance. Hours are never invoiced by surprise.

Is there a minimum term?

No. It is monthly, and ending it takes one month's notice from either side.

A tentative budget before we talk

Five or six questions, under a minute. We send you the tentative budget, the estimated time and how many phases it comes in, and you see it right here.