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Fractional CTO

Technical leadership, for exactly as long as you need it.

Technical judgement a defined number of days a week, for founders who need the decisions made well before they can justify a full-time hire.

Book office hours

Who this is for

You need the decisions, not the headcount.

Early on the binding constraint is rarely how much engineering gets done. It is how many expensive, hard-to-reverse decisions get made badly.

  • You have a product and users, and the technical decisions have started to outrun the team
  • You are about to make your first engineering hires and have never run that interview
  • An enterprise deal has produced a security questionnaire nobody can answer
  • You inherited a codebase from an agency and do not know what you actually own
  • You are being asked to commit to an architecture before you have the experience to judge it

When this is the wrong spend

If there is no product and no users yet, the constraint is not technical judgement. It is finding out whether anyone wants the thing. Build the rough version yourself and buy an hour when a specific decision comes up. That is what the first rung is for, and it is what we will tell you on the call.

The three rungs

Every rung optional. Every exit planned.

Each rung is a different level of commitment, and you can stop at any of them. Most engagements start at the first and never need the third for a year.

  1. Start here

    Advisory / office hours

    A standing slot to think through architecture, a build-versus-buy call, or the first few engineering hires.

    • No retainer
    • One decision at a time
    • A written plan you can act on

    Ad hoc, no minimum

  2. The main value

    Fractional CTO

    Defined days a week, embedded in your team: in your standups, in your codebase, and accountable for the decisions rather than commenting on them.

    • Set days each week, in your calendar
    • Own the architecture and the hiring bar
    • In your channels, not on a call once a month

    Monthly retainer, rolling

  3. The exit

    Set up your next CTO to succeed

    Your next CTO starts from a system that already works: the decisions documented, the architecture proven, and a hiring bar already set.

    • A hiring bar that outlasts us
    • An overlap that carries the context forward
    • A decision log that's theirs from day one

    Planned from the start

Book office hours

What a month looks like

Embedded, not on call.

The difference between a fractional CTO and an advisor is whether they are in the room when the decision gets made. That needs a fixed rhythm, which is why the main offer is a retainer rather than hours.

  • Set days each week, in your calendar, not "as needed"
  • In your standups and your repository, with commit access
  • Architecture decisions written down as they are made, not reconstructed later
  • One written update a month you can forward to your board without editing it

In your channels

Reachable between the days, too.

The set days are when the work happens. The rest of the week you can still ask, and get an answer that commits to something rather than a suggestion to book time.

  1. Vendor wants us on their managed Postgres. Cheaper than RDS but they hold the backups. Worth it?

  2. No. Not until you can restore from a backup you control. Ask them for a documented export path first. If that takes more than a week to answer, that is the answer.

  3. They have one, but it is manual. Weekly.

  4. Then it is fine for now. I will add it to the risk list and we will revisit it before the enterprise deal closes. Writing this up in the decision log today.

The exit

We plan for the day you don't need us.

The awkward version of this conversation happens by accident, usually when a board member asks why there is no CTO. The better version is agreed at the start.

  1. 01

    Agree the trigger

    At the start we define what has to be true before you hire: team size, funding, or the point where technical judgement becomes the differentiator.

  2. 02

    Write the spec, run the loop

    We write the job description, screen the shortlist and sit on the panel. You get an interview bar that outlasts us.

  3. 03

    Transfer everything, then step back

    Architecture decisions, the risk list, the vendor relationships and the access, all transferred on a defined overlap so nothing gets missed.

FAQ

Fractional CTO, in practice

What is a fractional CTO?
Technical leadership delivered as a team rather than a single hire, working with you a defined number of days a week on a monthly retainer instead of as a full-time appointment. We own the technical decisions, which means architecture, build-versus-buy and the hiring bar. That is what separates it from advising on them from outside.
How is this different from a technical advisor?
An advisor comments; a fractional CTO decides and is accountable for the decision. That is why the main offer is a retainer with set days rather than ad hoc hours. Someone who shows up when summoned does not have the context to be accountable for anything.
How many days a week?
Agreed up front and fixed, so both sides can plan around it. Most engagements sit between one and two days; the number matters less than it being the same days every week.
What does a fractional CTO cost in Singapore?
We quote per engagement rather than publishing a rate, because the right number depends on the days and the scope of what you are handing over. The first conversation is office hours, which is deliberately a low commitment.
When should we hire our own CTO instead?
When throughput rather than decision quality has become the constraint, roughly past four or five engineers, or when the technology is the company’s differentiator and that judgement needs to live inside permanently. We define the trigger with you at the start rather than waiting for it to become awkward.
Do you write code as a fractional CTO?
Yes, where it helps: reviews, the hard parts, and the first cut of anything the team has not done before. We are practitioners, not a management layer, but the retainer is bought for judgement rather than throughput.

Start with office hours.Bring one decision.

One conversation, no retainer, and an honest answer about whether you need this yet.

Book office hours

Tell us the workflow.

It goes to the people who would do the work, not to a sales inbox.

Used only to reply to you. We won't add you to a list or share it with anyone.

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