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?

The Fractional CTO Model

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.

Fractional CTO vs Full-Time CTO

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.

When you need a Fractional CTO
  • 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
Benefits
  • 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

1

Initial assessment

First 2 weeks

Deep audit of your code, architecture, team, and processes. I identify bottlenecks, technical debt, and opportunities for quick wins.

2

Strategic planning

Weeks 3-4

Creating technical roadmap, architectural vision, and hiring plan. We align technical goals with business priorities and define KPIs to track progress.

3

Ongoing support

Ongoing

Regular strategic sessions, participation in hiring, code and architecture reviews, team mentorship. I effectively become a full part of your team.

4

Communication

Ongoing

Weekly 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.

5

Availability

On demand

Response within 24 hours for regular questions. For critical situations (critical outages, security issues) - available within 1-2 hours to coordinate resolution.

Services I offer

Build an MVP
Turn your idea into a working product with the right architecture and tech stack
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Scale your product
Optimize architecture and processes to handle growth without outages
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AI transformation
Integrate AI/ML into your product with a clear strategy and roadmap
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Technology audit
Get expert assessment of code, architecture, and technical debt
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Technical Due Diligence
Comprehensive technical assessment for investors and M&A deals
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Custom engagement
Custom work format tailored to your business and objectives

Choose a package

Flexible engagement formats for startups at any stage

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

Who I work with

Experience across various industries helps find the right solutions faster

Marketing technologies
Fintech and banking
E-commerce and retail
Edtech and online education
SaaS products

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.

or

Send a request

Hire a Fractional CTO - Anton Golosnichenko - Fractional CTO