Fractional CTO for growing startups
Get expert technology leadership without a full-time hire. Strategic guidance, hands-on support, and proven expertise to scale your product and engineering team.
What is a Fractional CTO?
A Fractional CTO is an experienced technical leader who works with your company part-time or on contract. You get CTO-level strategic leadership and expertise without having to hire a full-time employee at $200k+ per year.
A full-time CTO costs $200k-$400k/year + equity. A Fractional CTO gives you the same level of expertise for $3k-$12k/month depending on engagement. Perfect for early-stage startups that need experienced expertise but don't have the budget or full-time workload.
- You have technical debt and don't know where to start
- You're preparing for the next funding round
- You need to scale your engineering team
- You want to implement AI/ML in your product
- Your team lacks strategic leadership
- You're a non-technical founder and need technical expertise
- Cost savings: 5-10x cheaper than a full-time CTO
- Flexibility: Scale engagement based on your needs
- Experience: 8+ years working with startups at all stages
- Fast start: Begin this week, no lengthy hiring process
How it works
Initial assessment
First 2 weeksDeep audit of your code, architecture, team, and processes. I identify bottlenecks, technical debt, and opportunities for quick wins.
Strategic planning
Weeks 3-4Creating technical roadmap, architectural vision, and hiring plan. We align technical goals with business priorities and define KPIs to track progress.
Ongoing support
OngoingRegular strategic sessions, participation in hiring, code and architecture reviews, team mentorship. I effectively become a full part of your team.
Communication
OngoingWeekly calls with founders and/or management team, sprint reviews with the team every 2 weeks, async communication in Slack. You're always up to date on progress.
Availability
On demandResponse within 24 hours for regular questions. For critical situations (critical outages, security issues) - available within 1-2 hours to coordinate resolution.
Services I offer
Choose a package
Flexible engagement formats for startups at any stage
Contract Length:
Advisor CTO
$3,600per month
6 hours per week, 24 hours per month
For early-stage startups with an MVP or an idea that need oversight and support without full-time involvement.
- 2 strategic sessions per month (90 minutes each)
- Technical stack and architecture audit
- Slack support (48-hour response time)
- Hiring support: candidate reviews and recommendations
What's included:
- 6-month technical roadmap
- Architecture guidelines document
Outcome:A clear plan and recommendations for technology and team development without the overhead of a full-time CTO.
Contract term:1 month
Growth CTO
Most popular$6,000per month
10 hours per week, 40 hours per month
Post-Seed to Series A startups actively building product and team (3 to 10 engineers).
- Weekly call with founders (1 hour)
- Bi-weekly sprint reviews with the team
- Active hiring involvement: sourcing, interviews, offers, onboarding
- Product architecture and technical roadmap ownership
- Emergency availability for critical situations
- Slack support (24-hour response time)
What's included:
- Quarterly OKRs for the technical team
- Hiring playbook for first 5-10 engineers
- Architecture Decision Records (ADR)
Outcome:A solid technical foundation and team ready for rapid growth and product scaling without chaos.
Contract term:from 3 months
Scale CTO
$12,000per month
≈3 days per week, 80 hours per month
Series A+ startups with 15-20+ engineers preparing for the next funding round.
- Everything from Growth CTO package
- Participation in executive meetings and investor discussions
- Building engineering management team (leads, engineering managers)
- Due diligence support for fundraising
- Organizational design: team structure, processes, rituals
- Technical debt strategy and refactoring roadmap
- Vendor and partner negotiations (AWS, third-party services, contractors)
What's included:
- Engineering handbook and team culture code
- Leveling and compensation framework
- Engineering metrics dashboards (DORA, velocity, code quality, etc.)
- Incident management and on-call rotation
Outcome:A mature engineering organization with clear processes, metrics, and a culture of product ownership.
Contract term:from 6 months
Who I work with
Experience across various industries helps find the right solutions faster
Frequently asked questions
Ready to scale your startup?
Start with a free 30-minute consultation. We'll discuss your goals, challenges, and determine how I can help.