Fractional CTO in Dublin
Expert technical leadership for Dublin startups. CTO services in GMT/IST timezone. Build, scale, and transform your product without full-time CTO costs.
Why Dublin Startups Choose Fractional CTO
Dublin has become a key European tech hub, especially for American companies entering the EU market. The city is home to European headquarters of Google, Meta, LinkedIn, Stripe, and hundreds of startups. Industries like SaaS, FinTech, Enterprise Software, Gaming, and Pharma Tech thrive thanks to favorable tax environment and strong talent base from universities.
However, this concentration creates unique challenges: competition for talent with tech giants is intense, engineer salaries are high for Europe, and investor expectations for technical maturity are high. Many startups find that traditional full-time CTO hiring — costing €180K-€280K+ plus equity — is impractical at early stages.
Challenges for Dublin Startups
- Competition for talent with tech giants (Google, Meta, etc.)
- High engineer salaries make full-time CTO hiring expensive
- Investors expect high technical maturity
- Need for GDPR compliance
- Regulatory requirements for FinTech (from Central Bank of Ireland)
- Competition for talent with tech giants (Google, Meta, etc.)
- High engineer salaries make full-time CTO hiring expensive
- Investors expect high technical maturity
- Need for GDPR compliance
- Regulatory requirements for FinTech (from Central Bank of Ireland)
How Fractional CTO Helps Solve These Challenges
- Access to experienced CTO without Dublin premiums and salaries (€150K-€250K+ savings annually)
- Start immediately — without 3-6 month hiring process
- Scale engagement up/down as you progress through funding rounds
- Expertise in building distributed teams with remote-first focus
- Global best practices, not limited by Ireland talent pool
What I do
- Tech stack selection for Irish engineer market
- Launch in 3-4 months with scalable foundation
- Investor demo-ready architecture
- Handle 10x growth without failures
- Technical debt management and refactoring
- Prepare for Dublin VC due diligence
- LLM integrations and GPT-based solutions
- ML systems for competitive advantage
- Strategy, implementation, and MLOps
- Code quality and architecture review
- Prepare for Dublin VC due diligence
- Risk map and recommendations
- Comprehensive technical risk assessment
- Team and product scalability analysis
- Reports for investment committees
- Navigate Ireland talent market
- Build hybrid teams (local + remote engineers)
- Establish engineering culture
Pricing
Packages for Dublin Startups
Advisor CTO
$3,600per month
~6 hours per week of dedicated time
For early-stage startups with an MVP or an idea that need oversight and support without full-time involvement.
How we work:
- Bi-weekly strategy session with founders (90 min)
- Technical stack and architecture review - are you building on the right foundation?
- Code review of critical decisions and risky PRs
- Candidate screening: resume review, interview structure, hire/no-hire recommendations
- Infrastructure and tooling spend review - are you overpaying for cloud and third-party services?
- Async access via Slack (48-hour response time)
What you walk away with:
- Technical assessment report - honest evaluation of your codebase, infrastructure, and risks
- Technology roadmap - prioritized recommendations for the next 6 months
- Hiring scorecard - what to look for in your first 3-5 engineers
Outcome
Confidence that your technical decisions are sound and a clear plan to build on - without costly mistakes.
Month-to-month, cancel anytime
Growth CTO
Most popular$5,800per month
~10 hours per week of dedicated time
For Post-Seed to Series A startups actively building product and scaling their team from 3 to 10 engineers.
How we work:
- Weekly sync with founders - priorities, blockers, technical strategy
- Code review and architecture ownership - I'm in your codebase, not just on calls
- Hands-on hiring: job descriptions, sourcing strategy, technical interviews, offer calibration
- Technical debt triage - identifying what slows the team down and what can wait
- CI/CD and developer productivity review - testing strategy, deployment pipeline, dev environment
- Engineering delivery oversight - sprint reviews, velocity tracking, quality gates
- Production incident support - emergency availability during critical outages
- Async access via Slack (24-hour response time)
What you walk away with:
- 90-day technical roadmap, updated quarterly
- Architecture Decision Records - documented rationale for every major technical choice
- Hiring playbook - leveling criteria, interview process, scorecards, onboarding checklist
- Monthly strategic memo - progress, risks, recommendations
- Technical debt register - prioritized list with estimated impact and effort
- Team OKRs - quarterly goals tied to business outcomes
Outcome
A solid technical foundation and team ready for rapid product growth without chaos.
3-month minimum commitment
Scale CTO
$11,000per month
~20 hours per week of dedicated time
For Series A+ startups with 15-20+ engineers preparing for the next funding round.
How we work:
- Everything from Growth CTO package
- Daily involvement in engineering operations - standups, planning, escalations
- Executive team participation - board prep, investor meetings, due diligence support
- Engineering management development - coaching team leads into engineering managers
- Organizational design - team topology, processes, rituals, communication structures
- Vendor strategy - cloud cost optimization, service negotiations, contractor management
- Technical debt strategy - refactoring roadmap balanced against product delivery
What you walk away with:
- Engineering handbook - culture, standards, processes, expectations
- Leveling and compensation framework - career ladders and salary bands
- Engineering metrics dashboard - DORA metrics, velocity trends, code quality
- Incident management playbook - on-call rotation, severity definitions, postmortem process
- Technical due diligence package - investor-ready architecture and security documentation
- Security and compliance assessment - SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA readiness evaluation
- Engineering headcount plan and infrastructure budget forecast
Outcome
A mature engineering organization ready for due diligence and the next funding round.
3-month minimum commitment
How Remote Work Functions with Dublin Startups
- Working hours overlap: Overlap with 9am-6pm GMT/IST for 3-4 hours daily — enough for meetings and calls. Outside this window, available async via Slack and email for zero-downtime work.
- Communication rhythm: Weekly strategic call with founders. Bi-weekly team sync. Daily communication via Slack. Emergency availability for critical issues.
- In-person visits: Quarterly visits to Dublin available for Scale CTO and above packages. Available for board meetings and investor presentations (remote or in-person).
How it works
Week 1: Onboarding and Audit
5 daysMeet the team, review codebase, identify critical issues, create initial roadmap.
Month 1: Quick Wins and Foundation
4 weeksAddress critical issues, set up development processes, code reviews, begin architectural improvements.
Month 2-3: Scaling and Growth
8 weeksImplement architectural improvements, optimize performance, hire and mentor team.
Understanding Dublin Startup Ecosystem
- SaaS and Enterprise Software
- FinTech and Payments
- Gaming and Entertainment Tech
- Pharma Tech and HealthTech
- E-commerce and Marketplaces
- Developer Tools and Infrastructure
- Familiar with Dublin VC expectations
- Understanding of Frontline Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, Delta Partners requirements
- Experience with NDRC and Enterprise Ireland programs
- GDPR compliance
- Central Bank of Ireland requirements for FinTech
- SOC2 Type II for corporate clients
- EU data security requirements
Frequently asked questions
Related services
Ready to Start Working with a Fractional CTO in Dublin?
Start with a free 30-minute consultation. We'll discuss your goals, challenges, and determine how I can help.