Fractional CTO
The technical leadership you need, at the level of commitment you can afford
A fractional CTO is a technology director who works for your company a set number of days per month, continuously and with real responsibility for the decisions. Not a consultancy that hands over a report and leaves, and not a developer executing tasks: the person who answers for technology in front of the board.
- 3+ years
- working as an external CTO
- 2-6 d/month
- of dedication depending on size
- MBA
- business judgement, not only technical
Why it matters
Why this is not a large-company luxury
Most companies that depend on their software have nobody answering for technology at board level. The decisions get made anyway: by the supplier, by the longest-serving developer, or by the calendar.
Technical decisions are money decisions
Choosing an ERP, switching supplier, building instead of buying or rewriting an application commits budget for years. With no technical judgement in the room, those figures are approved blind and the mistake only surfaces much later.
Nobody assesses suppliers from your side
Whoever builds the system cannot be the one judging whether it is well built. You need someone on your side of the table who speaks the other side’s language: able to read a proposal, set acceptance criteria and audit what is delivered.
Technical debt never competes for budget
It comes up in every meeting and is quantified in none. Until there is an inventory with a cost attached, any other investment beats it, and the system gets more expensive to change every quarter.
The knowledge lives in a single head
In many companies one person understands the whole system. That is an operational risk, not an achievement, and it is fixed with technical leadership, documentation and team practice — not with more firefighting.
The problem
Signs that you already need one
If you recognise three or more, you are already paying the cost of having no technical leadership; it just shows up under other budget lines.
- You approve technical budgets without being able to judge whether the price is reasonable.
- Every time something has to be decided, the conversation ends in "ask him".
- The business plan and the real state of the system look nothing alike.
- You have grown and the software that got you here will not carry the next step.
- You have developers, but nobody deciding how things should be built and to what standard.
- A large client, an investor or an audit has asked something nobody could answer.
Comparison
Fractional CTO or salaried CTO
The honest comparison is not hour against hour, but which decisions get made well in each scenario and what it costs to get them wrong. This is what actually differs between the two models.
Criterion
Fractional CTO
Salaried CTO
Cost
Fractional CTO
A monthly fee proportional to the days agreed. It goes up, down or stops when the need changes.
Salaried CTO
A full fixed annual cost: salary, employer contributions, bonus, equipment and training, plus the hiring process. It costs the same in a month with three big decisions as in a month with none.
Time to contribute
Fractional CTO
A diagnosis in three or four weeks, and decisions made from the first month.
Salaried CTO
A long search for a scarce senior profile, plus several months of onboarding before performing at the expected level.
Experience brought in
Fractional CTO
Has seen many different systems, suppliers and teams: the patterns and the mistakes were paid for by somebody else.
Salaried CTO
Complete depth in your business, but usually with a single reference track record behind them.
Dedication
Fractional CTO
A few days a month concentrated on decisions and on the board. Day-to-day team management is agreed separately.
Salaried CTO
Daily presence: people, internal processes and everything that comes up, decisive or not.
Independence
Fractional CTO
No internal career to protect. Free to say that a project is unnecessary, that a supplier is not good enough, or that the right answer is to do nothing.
Salaried CTO
Their decisions coexist with internal politics, with their own team and with what they themselves built earlier.
Risk if it does not work out
Fractional CTO
It ends with short notice and a documented handover.
Salaried CTO
A hire that is hard to reverse, with a cost in money and in internal credibility.
Goal of the engagement
Fractional CTO
Set the function up and, when the time comes, define the internal profile and hand the role over.
Salaried CTO
To hold the role permanently.
What matters: you pay for judgement, not for presence
Technical leadership is not consumed at a steady rate. It concentrates in a handful of decisions a year that are worth a great deal of money: what to buy, what to build, who to hire and what to let die. The fractional model exists so that you can pay for the level of judgement those decisions deserve, instead of the level that fits into a full-time salary. And unlike a one-off consultancy, it stays: it answers for what it decided three months later.
What we do
What the monthly fee includes
Dedication agreed in writing, not a bucket of hours that expires. This is what we do inside it.
A seat at the management table
In the room where decisions are made, with the technology translated into time, cost and risk. No jargon and no filler slides: one recommendation per decision, and what dropping it implies.
Architecture and written decisions
What gets built, what gets bought, what gets dropped and why, including the alternatives that were ruled out. Written so someone can review it two years from now.
Supplier control
Reviewing proposals, negotiating scope, setting acceptance criteria and auditing deliveries. On your side of the table, with the vocabulary of the other side.
Team and hiring
Defining profiles, technical tests, interviews and onboarding. Plus the engineering practice that stops the team depending on one person.
Roadmap and technical budget
A twelve-month plan with phases, estimated cost and risks, concrete enough to take to a board or to an investment round.
A direct line for what is urgent
Someone to call when something breaks or when a decision cannot wait. An answer within 24 working hours, sooner when the system is critical and that is agreed.
Engagement models
How much dedication you need
Four ways in, from the smallest commitment to the largest. You can start with the diagnosis and decide afterwards, and you can move up or down as the situation changes.
Diagnosis
When you do not yet know what to ask for
We talk to the people who use the systems, read the code that already exists and review infrastructure, suppliers and team. We finish with a map of the real situation, the risks in order and the three or four moves with the highest return. It is yours even if you do not continue with us, and it is deducted from the first monthly fee if you do.
DedicationThree or four weeks, fixed price
Light leadership
Companies building with an external supplier
Board meetings, supplier control and architecture decisions. Enough when the building happens outside and what is missing is someone answering for it from inside your company.
DedicationAround two days a month
Full leadership
An in-house technical team or several projects at once
Everything above plus leading the team, hiring, code and infrastructure review, and managing technical debt with a cost attached. The usual model once the company depends on its software to operate.
DedicationFour to six days a month
Handover
When it is time for a CTO on the payroll
We define the profile, take part in the selection, support the onboarding and hand over with documentation. We work to stop being needed: here that ending is planned from the start.
DedicationUntil the transfer is complete
Straight talk
When a salaried CTO is the better call
The model does not fit every case, and telling you now is cheaper than finding out six months in.
- When technology is the product and the technical team is already most of the headcount.
- When what you need is daily presence to lead people, not a few decisions a month.
- When the volume of technical decisions fills a full diary and waiting for the next session already costs money.
- When the board or an investor requires the role full-time and exclusive.
In those cases we say so, and if you want we help you define the profile and select the person. Losing a contract is cheaper than losing credibility.
FAQ
What people ask us
What exactly does "fractional" mean?
A fraction of the working week, not a fraction of the responsibility. It is a technology director who dedicates an agreed number of days per month to your company, on a stable basis, with the same authority a salaried CTO would have within that scope. In Spanish we call it dirección técnica externa; the English term stuck because it describes the model well.
How is this different from hiring a consultancy?
In the continuity and in who answers for it. A consultancy delivers a report and leaves; here decisions are made, executed and answered for months later. If a decision turns out badly, we are still there to fix it.
How does the cost compare to a CTO on the payroll?
The fee is proportional to the days agreed, so an engagement of two to six days a month sits well below the total cost of a full-time senior hire, where on top of salary there are employer contributions, bonus, equipment, training and the cost of the search itself. The actual figure depends on the dedication and comes out of the diagnosis as a closed number.
How long does an engagement last?
Usually a six-month initial commitment, because below that there is no time for decisions to show, and then a rolling monthly notice period. It ends when the function is set up or when an internal CTO comes in.
What if we already have an internal technical lead?
It fits well: the fractional CTO covers strategy, architecture and the relationship with the board, and the internal lead keeps the team’s day to day. We reinforce whoever is already there, we do not replace them.
Do you work with our competitors?
Not while the engagement lasts, and we put that in writing. Full exclusivity we do not sign: that would be paying for a full-time commitment while buying a part-time one.
Next step
Half an hour well spent
Walk us through the problem on a short call. You leave with a first read on how we'd approach it and what it would involve — no commitment, no sales deck.