A Fractional CTO is a consulting engagement where you get experienced, senior technical leadership for your business on a part-time or fixed-term basis. If your engineering team is growing fast but starting to struggle with delivery, culture, or visibility into what's actually happening, this might be exactly what you need.
This consulting engagement is designed for founders, CEOs, and boards of late-stage startups and early scaleups, typically companies with between 10 and 100 people, where engineering is a core part of the product.
You might be in this situation if:
I've led engineering through the 5-to-50 growth journey multiple times. I know what it looks like when a team is scaling well, and I know the warning signs when it isn't. More importantly, I know what to do about it.
Here's where I typically focus:
Culture is the foundation everything else sits on. I work with your engineering leaders to build a culture of trust, clear expectations, and continuous improvement. This isn't about values on a wall. It's about changing the behaviours that determine how your team actually operates day to day.
I uplift the practices that make engineering delivery predictable and visible, including agile processes, delivery cadences, metrics, and the feedback loops that help teams learn and improve.
One of the most common frustrations between engineering and leadership is a lack of shared understanding. I help bridge that gap, giving you clear visibility into what engineering is doing, why, and how it's tracking.
I work with your team on the technical decisions that will shape your product for years to come, from infrastructure and scalability to build-vs-buy decisions and long-term architecture direction.
AI is changing how software gets built, and teams that adopt it well can move significantly faster. I help engineering teams adopt AI tools and practices in their development processes in a way that meaningfully increases velocity, while keeping the codebase maintainable and the team in control of what they're building.
From cyber security posture and ISO 27001 programmes through to board-level risk frameworks, I can help you identify and manage the risks that matter most at your stage of growth.
Getting the right people into the right roles is one of the highest-leverage things a growing engineering team can do. I can help you build out your engineering organisation, define roles, run hiring processes, and create growth frameworks that retain your best people.
Every consulting engagement is different, but most Fractional CTO arrangements fall into one of three formats:
If you're not sure exactly where the problems are, or you want an evidence-based starting point before committing to an ongoing engagement, an Engineering Maturity Assessment is often the right first step. I conduct structured interviews across your engineering organisation, synthesise the findings, and give you a clear picture of what's working, what isn't, and where to focus. That assessment can then directly inform and kick off a Fractional CTO engagement.
Learn more about assessmentsTypically 2 to 4 days per week, this is the most common format for companies that need consistent senior technical leadership over an extended period. We agree on focus areas upfront, and I operate as part of your leadership team for the duration of the engagement.
For companies with a specific goal in mind, a fixed-term consulting engagement with defined outcomes can be a better fit. A typical example might be a 6-month programme focused on uplifting engineering maturity, building out a delivery framework, and leaving your team with the capability to sustain it independently.
All formats are scoped and priced based on your specific situation. Get in touch to talk through what would work best.
A lot of fractional and interim CTO consulting engagements focus on the technical side: architecture reviews, technology choices, engineering process. That's important, but it's only part of the picture.
What tends to make the biggest difference to a growing engineering team is the people side: how leaders are developed, how trust is built across the team, how change is introduced in a way that brings people with it rather than alienating them. This is where I've consistently had the most impact, and it's what I bring to every engagement.
I'm direct and clear in how I work. I give honest feedback, including feedback that's hard to hear, but I do it in a way that builds rather than damages relationships. And I'm technical enough that engineers trust my judgement, while being people-focused enough that they actually want to work with me.
It's a good fit if you need senior technical leadership but aren't ready to commit to a full-time hire, if you have a specific problem to solve or a capability gap to fill, or if you're going through a period of change (rapid growth, a fundraise, a restructure) and need experienced hands on deck.
It's probably not the right fit if you need someone embedded full-time from day one, or if you're at a very early stage where a hands-on technical co-founder is what the business actually needs.
If you're not sure, the best starting point is a conversation. Book a call and we can work out together whether this is the right kind of engagement for your situation.