Fractional CTO: strategic technical leadership on a part-time basis.
A fractional CTO is a senior technical leader engaged part-time — typically 1-2 days per week. Strategic decisions, architecture oversight, hiring, and investor relations — without the full-time salary commitment.
Need ongoing technical leadership on a part-time basis — architecture, hiring, and technical strategy without a full-time CTO
The fractional CTO model exists because most startups have a technical leadership gap that doesn't justify a full-time hire:
The economics:
- Full-time CTO: $180-250k salary + equity + benefits
- Engineering team of 2-3: needs technical leadership
- Revenue stage: pre-Series A, $1-3M ARR
A full-time CTO hire at this stage often means hiring too junior (can't afford the right person) or too senior (no direct IC work).
A fractional CTO fills this gap: 1-2 days per week of genuine technical leadership from someone who knows what they're doing.
What a fractional CTO does weekly:
- Weekly 1:1s with engineers
- Architecture decisions when they arise
- Code review spot checks
- Hiring interviews and evaluation
- Sprint planning input
- Founder briefing on technical status
What they don't do: Write code daily (that's the engineering team). Project manage tickets (that's engineering manager or the engineers themselves). Sales engineering (unless there's overlap with their expertise).
When to graduate to full-time: Team reaches 4-5 engineers, technical decisions block business decisions more than once per week, or the CTO role is a key part of the fundraising narrative.
Ongoing fractional CTO engagement with weekly involvement in technical decisions, team oversight, and strategic roadmap
Weekly availability
for technical decisions
Architecture oversight
of active development
Hiring support
criteria, interviews, evaluation
Monthly technical briefing
for founders
Roadmap input
with engineering estimates
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
Ongoing fractional CTO engagement with weekly involvement in technical decisions, team oversight, and strategic roadmap
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Monthly retainer: defined availability and deliverables. Not hourly billing.
Questions, answered.
6-18 months. Long enough to establish culture and make architecture decisions stick. Short enough to transition to full-time leadership without losing too much context.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.