Fractional CTO
Not every company needs a full-time CTO — but every company building software needs someone accountable for how it gets built. I work with a small number of companies as a part-time technology executive: senior enough to own the outcome, fractional enough to fit a company that isn't ready for the full-time hire.
Who this is for
- Founders, pre-seed through Series B, who need a technical counterpart — someone to turn product ambition into an achievable roadmap, make build-vs-buy calls, vet technical claims from vendors and candidates, and sit beside you in investor and customer conversations.
- Companies between technology leaders, where the team is capable but the seat is empty and the permanent search will take months.
- Acquirers and investors who want a clear-eyed read on a target's technology, team, and delivery capability — or help integrating platforms after the deal closes.
- Teams whose delivery has stalled — releases hurt, roadmaps slip, and adding engineers somehow made it slower.
What an engagement looks like
- Advisory — a few hours a week. Architecture and roadmap reviews, hiring plans and final-round interviews, vendor decisions, board-meeting prep.
- Fractional leadership — one to two days a week, owning technology strategy: team topology, delivery metrics, key hires, and the engineering practices that have to change as you grow.
- Focused engagements — technical due diligence, post-acquisition integration, cloud migration planning, or standing up your first real delivery process.
The first 90 days
I start by listening — to the team, the codebase, and the numbers. Every assessment covers three axes: the people (skills, morale, how teams are shaped), the delivery system (lead time, deploy frequency, incident rate), and the architecture (what makes change expensive). Then we fix the tightest constraint first, because a visible win earns the trust that bigger changes require.
From there you get a plan with owners and dates — one designed to survive my departure. Good fractional leadership builds toward its own redundancy: part of the job is growing or hiring the leaders who will replace me.
Why me
Twenty-plus years of doing this at every scale: I grew a consulting account from two developers to 35 across four teams, brought startup delivery speed to a century-old bank, modernized and unified a logistics platform after acquisition, and helped build the underwriting engine at a fintech unicorn. You can read more about how I lead.
If this sounds like what your company needs, tell me about it — you'll get an honest read on whether I can help, and a referral elsewhere if I'm not the right fit.