Fractional technical leadership when you need senior judgement, not a full-time executive

Who this is for

• Early product companies whose founder is still the de facto CTO and is becoming the bottleneck.
• Teams with capable builders who need someone to set the technical sequence.
• Companies adopting AI who need continuity, not a one-week workshop.

Problems this model fits

• Decisions wait because nobody is mandated to make the architectural call.
• Hiring is happening against a vague 'senior full-stack' profile.
• Vendors and tools accumulate without an owner for the map.
• A full-time CTO is neither budgeted nor justified by team size.

What I do in the room

• Own the technical sequence: what we build, integrate, or refuse this quarter.
• Architecture and AI decisions with written rationale.
• Input on hiring, vendors, and build-versus-buy.
• Unblock delivery on the critical path — including writing the code when that is the fastest path.
• Translate between founders, customers, and engineering without watering down the constraint.

How the retainer works

A defined cadence (typically weekly or twice-weekly) plus async on the critical path. We agree what I am accountable for this month. I will not sit in every stand-up as a ceremonial CTO. If the company outgrows the model, the success condition is that you can hire a full-time lead into a system that already has a shape.

When you actually need a full-time CTO

Fractional leadership is a bridge. It is the wrong destination if these are true.

How fractional retainers fail

• Using the advisor as a slack punching bag for every bug.
• No internal owner, so every decision waits for the next call.
• Scope that silently becomes full-time IC work at retainer rates.

What you can expect

• A living technical sequence, not a one-off strategy PDF.
• Written decisions for anything expensive to reverse.
• Availability on the cadence we agree — and honesty when a topic needs a project, not a call.

Trabalho selecionado

• Genie Platforms — Copilotos de vendas com IA que alinham outbound, nurturing e RevOps — sem abandonar a instrumentação já existente.
• TIVA — Pesquisa por voz e texto em segundo plano, no fluxo de trabalho da equipa — não mais um ecrã de pesquisa isolado.

Serviços relacionados

• Software engineering consulting — Senior engineering judgement for companies that need a principal-level partner, not a staffed agency team.
• Software architecture — System design for live products: what should exist, where the boundaries sit, and how the system fails.
• Technical audit — An independent reading of the system you have — aimed at a decision, not a severity-coloured spreadsheet.
• AI integration — Put a model inside an existing workflow, with contracts and a way out — not beside the product as a chatbot.

Notas relacionadas

• A practical software architecture review framework
• When to add an LLM to an existing product — and when you should not

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