Fractional CTO
Your fractional CTO
for vertical SaaS
Senior, part-time technical leadership for domain-expert founders who built the product but never expected to run an engineering org. 20+ years. Hands-on, never slide decks.
When you need a fractional CTO
The founder problems I solve
You inherited the codebase
The original tech founder is gone, or never existed. You can ship features but every architectural decision feels like a coin flip. You need someone who has made these calls 100 times.
Your team is shipping but plateauing
Two engineers became six. Velocity flat. Bugs keep coming back. The senior dev has 100 opinions and no time to write them down. You need a tie-breaker who has scaled engineering orgs before.
Series A or B raised, scaling is now real
The investor deck promised 10× growth. The infrastructure was built for 1×. You need someone who can plan the scale-up, hire the team, and be in the room with the board.
You cannot justify a full-time CTO yet
A senior CTO at $250-400k all-in is a heavy bet at $3-10M ARR. A fractional model gives you the seniority without the burn rate. When you outgrow it, I help you hire the full-timer.
What you get
A senior engineer in your corner
Roadmap, architecture decisions, build-vs-buy calls, technology bets. The longer-horizon thinking your team does not have headspace for.
One-on-ones with your senior engineers, code review escalations, on-call rotation design, hiring loop sanity check. The work a CTO does that nobody else can.
p99 latency, capacity planning, autoscaling, database tuning. Real war-room experience: 3s to 80ms responses, 2 kHz IoT throughput, millions of users.
AWS architecture review, cost audit, savings plans, NAT and data-transfer optimization. Over $1M in client cloud bills cut without breaking features.
SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR. Technical controls, audit prep, secret rotation. From someone who has shipped in regulated SaaS.
I open the codebase. I read your incident postmortems. I write the migration plan. Strategic without being theoretical.
How I work
Embedded, not external
1. Free 30-min call
Walk me through your team, your stack, and what is keeping you up. I tell you whether a fractional model fits, and what the first 90 days would look like. No commitment.
2. First 30 days: assess
Codebase walkthrough, infra audit, one-on-one with your engineers, review of the last three incidents. You get a written assessment with the top 5 risks and the top 5 leverage points.
3. Ongoing: execute
Recurring weekly sync. Technical decisions, hiring loop, architecture reviews, performance work, board prep. Available on Slack between syncs. Embedded in your team's rhythm, not parachuting in.
Engagement options
Three ways to work together
Free
30-min call
$0
- ✓ Quick read on your situation
- ✓ Whether a fractional model fits
- ✓ First 3 risks I would dig into
- ✓ No commitment
Fixed scope
90-day kickstart
3 months
- ✓ Written tech + team assessment
- ✓ Weekly strategy sync
- ✓ Top-5 risks shipped to fix
- ✓ Hiring loop set up
- ✓ Defined exit point
Ongoing
Embedded CTO
From 6 months
long-term if needed
- ✓ Everything in 90-day kickstart
- ✓ Board and investor prep
- ✓ Recurring weekly + on-Slack
- ✓ Hire your full-time CTO when ready
- ✓ Smooth handover when I exit
Service map
The five things I bring to your team
A fractional CTO is the operating layer. Below are the deep-work areas you also get access to.
AWS Cost Optimization
Cut your cloud bill 20-50%. Audit, ship the fixes, monitor.
See deep dive →Performance Engineering
Slow app to fast app. 3s to 80ms response, 2× checkout conversion.
See deep dive →Scale Readiness
Survive 10× traffic. Capacity, autoscaling, architecture that holds.
See deep dive →AI Enablement
Production AI, not demos. LLMs and RAG wired into your existing stack.
See deep dive →Security & Compliance
SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR. Technical controls and audit prep.
See deep dive →All five, on tap
The point of a fractional CTO is that you do not pre-pick the bottleneck. I find it and bring the right tool.
Common questions
How many hours per week?
Usually 8-16 hours per week for an embedded role. The 90-day kickstart can run heavier (up to 20 hours) because the assessment work is front-loaded. We agree the shape on the intro call, and re-negotiate quarterly if it stops fitting.
How is this different from a consultant?
A consultant gives advice and leaves. A fractional CTO is on the inside. I sit in your weekly leadership meeting, get pinged when production is on fire, and have an opinion on your hiring loop. Skin in the game without the cap-table commitment.
Do you sign an NDA?
Yes, mutual NDA before any commercial details are shared. I work with regulated SaaS clients so this is standard.
What stage do your clients tend to be?
Vertical SaaS at $2-15M ARR, Series A/B or bootstrapped. Domain-expert founders who built the product but never expected to run an engineering org. EU and US time zones, occasionally AU.
When should I hire a full-time CTO instead?
When you have 10+ engineers and your top engineering leader needs to be in the room for every product, finance, and people decision. I help you set that bar and run the hiring loop when you reach it. Then I hand over.
What if I just need one specific problem solved?
Then a fractional CTO is the wrong shape. Look at the service pages (AWS cost, performance, scale readiness, AI, security) for fixed-scope sprints. The fractional model is for ongoing leadership, not a one-shot fix.
Bring a senior engineer into your leadership team
30 minutes, your team, your stack, and the three things I would dig into first. No deck, no commitment.