A CTO, a team, or both
Senior technical leadership without the full-time commitment. Need strategic guidance? That's the fractional CTO. Need to ship products or integrations or have ongoing support? That's the fractional engineering team. Either way, you get experienced people who've done this dozens of times.
What we do
Technical leadership and engineering delivery, on a schedule that makes sense
Most growing teams hit a point where they need senior technical guidance but can't justify (or find) a full-time CTO. Some need to go further and outsource delivery entirely. We do both.
Our fractional CTO service gives you experienced technical leadership for architecture decisions, stack selection, team structure, vendor evaluations and product strategy on a part-time or project basis. Our fractional engineering team goes further: a fully managed squad that owns your technical delivery end-to-end, from sprint planning to production deployment.
What your fractional CTO actually does
Architecture decisions
Stack selection, infrastructure design, build-vs-buy calls and service boundary decisions. The choices that shape everything downstream.
Vendor and tool evaluations
Objective assessment of platforms, services and tools against your actual requirements. We don't have partnerships or referral deals clouding the recommendation.
Team structure and hiring
Guidance on when to hire, what roles to prioritise and how to structure engineering teams as you scale. We help write job specs and evaluate candidates.
Technical due diligence
Pre-investment or pre-acquisition code and architecture reviews. We assess technical risk, debt levels, team capability and infrastructure maturity.
Product and engineering strategy
Aligning technical decisions with business goals. Phased delivery planning, feature prioritisation and making sure engineering effort maps to what actually matters.
Developer experience and process
CI/CD pipelines, code review practices, testing strategy, documentation standards and deployment workflows. The systems that make engineering teams productive.
Why fractional makes sense
You need the expertise, not the headcount
A senior CTO costs £150k+ before equity. A full engineering team costs multiples of that. Fractional gives you the calibre of people you need on a schedule and budget that matches your stage.
Bad architecture compounds fast
The wrong stack, a poorly designed database or a missing caching layer doesn't show up on day one. It shows up six months later when everything is slow and every feature takes three times longer than it should.
Scope creep kills projects
Undefined requirements expand until budgets break and timelines collapse. Rigorous scoping sets clear boundaries, prioritises ruthlessly and protects your investment.
Founders shouldn't manage engineers
If technology isn't your background, you shouldn't be making architecture calls or running standups. Whether you need a CTO to set direction or a whole team to handle delivery, fractional lets you focus on the business.
50+
Projects guided through strategy and launch
97%
On-time delivery rate across all engagements
<2%
Post-launch critical issues on supported projects
100%
Client retention across advisory engagements
Fractional CTO
Senior technical leadership on a schedule that fits
Our fractional CTO service gives your team access to experienced technical leadership without the overhead of a full-time executive hire. We embed with your team on a regular cadence (typically 2 to 4 days per month) and take ownership of the technical decisions that shape your product's future.
Architecture reviews, vendor evaluations, hiring support, sprint planning, technical debt prioritisation and board-level reporting. We act as your CTO in every way that matters, on terms that match your stage and budget.
Fractional Engineering Team
A full engineering squad, without building one from scratch
Sometimes you don't just need someone to set direction, you need people to build the thing. Our fractional engineering team gives you a dedicated squad: an engineering lead, developers and QA working inside your sprints, your tools and your repos.
On the Managed Delivery tier, we go further. We provide the CTO, the engineering leads and the developers as one integrated unit. We own sprint planning, standups, retrospectives, technical roadmap, hiring pipeline and production operations. You stay focused on the product and the business. We handle everything under the bonnet.
Technical Strategy + Planning
Architecture decisions grounded in reality
We work with founders, CTOs and product teams to define technical strategy that balances ambition with pragmatism. Stack selection, architecture design, build-vs-buy analysis and phased delivery plans, all informed by what we've seen work (and fail) across dozens of projects.
The output is a clear technical plan your team can execute against: prioritised targets, dependency maps, risk registers and decision logs that keep everyone aligned as complexity grows.
Project Scoping + Estimation
Scope that protects your budget and your timeline
We decompose projects into discrete, estimable units of work: user stories, technical spikes, integration points and deployment phases. Every estimate includes assumptions, risks and contingency so there are no surprises.
Our scoping process has been refined across years of agency delivery. The result is a detailed project plan that development teams can trust, decision-makers can understand and project managers can track against.
Accessibility Auditing (WCAG)
Compliance that expands your audience
We conduct thorough accessibility audits against WCAG 2.1 AA standards using a combination of automated tools (axe DevTools, WAVE, Lighthouse) and manual testing: keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, colour contrast, focus management and semantic HTML.
Every audit delivers a prioritised remediation report with specific code-level fixes, severity ratings and legal risk context. We can also embed with your development team to implement the fixes directly.
Launch days that run like clockwork
We build detailed launch plans that cover every detail: DNS cutover sequences, CDN configuration, redirect mapping, monitoring setup, rollback procedures and communication timelines.
On launch day, we are on call to manage the deployment, monitor error rates and performance metrics in real time and respond to any issues immediately. Post-launch, we run a structured retrospective and hand off a monitoring playbook your team can maintain independently.
Engagement models
Fractional CTO
Advisory
Ongoing, month-to-month
2 days per month. Architecture reviews, vendor calls, hiring guidance and strategic planning sessions. Best for teams with an existing dev lead who need a senior sounding board.
Embedded
3-month minimum
4 days per month. Everything in Advisory plus sprint participation, code review oversight, team mentoring and hands-on technical decision-making. Best for teams building a new product or navigating a major technical shift.
Intensive
Fixed scope, typically 4 to 8 weeks
Full-time engagement for a defined period. Technical due diligence, architecture overhauls, launch support or post-incident recovery. Best for high-stakes situations that need dedicated focus.
All engagements start with a free discovery call. We'll recommend the model that fits your situation.
Fractional Engineering Team
Sprint Team
Get in touch
3-month minimum
A dedicated cross-functional squad (engineering lead, developers, QA) working in your sprints. We own delivery end-to-end: architecture, implementation, code review, testing and deployment. Best for teams who need to ship product but aren't ready to build an in-house engineering org.
Managed Delivery
Get in touch
6-month minimum
Your entire engineering function, managed. We provide the CTO, engineering leads and developers as a fully integrated team. Sprint planning, standups, retrospectives, hiring pipeline management and technical roadmap ownership. Best for founders who want to focus on the business while we handle everything technical.
Both tiers include a fractional CTO. Team size and composition are tailored to your product and stage.
Selected work
Strategy applies to everything we build
Amsterdam + Partners
Technical Strategy / Headless CMS Platform
2025
Amsterdam + Partners
Technical Strategy / Headless CMS Platform
End-to-end technical strategy, architecture design and launch planning for a premium headless Next.js platform with Storyblok CMS integration.
Kindling
Project Scoping / Web Application
2026
Kindling
Project Scoping / Web Application
Structured project scoping and phased delivery planning for a complex web application with multiple integration points.
Manyways
Launch Support / Interactive Platform
2025
Manyways
Launch Support / Interactive Platform
Launch planning, accessibility auditing and performance tuning for an interactive storytelling platform.
How we work
Our approach to fractional leadership and delivery
Listen before prescribing
We start by understanding your business goals, team capabilities, existing systems and constraints. Every recommendation is shaped by your context.
Document everything
Strategy that lives in someone's head is worthless. We produce clear, actionable artefacts: architecture decision records, project plans, risk registers and audit reports that your team can reference long after the engagement ends.
Prioritise ruthlessly
Not everything matters equally. We help you identify the 20% of decisions that drive 80% of outcomes and focus your energy there. Scope control is a discipline.
Test before you ship
Every launch plan includes pre-flight checklists: performance benchmarks, accessibility compliance, SEO validation, redirect verification and monitoring configuration. We don't launch until the numbers are right.
Stay available after launch
The real work starts after deployment. We provide post-launch monitoring support, incident response guidance and structured retrospectives to capture lessons and plan the next iteration.
Frequently asked questions
A consultant gives you a report and leaves. A fractional CTO becomes part of your team. We attend standups, participate in sprint planning, join vendor calls and take ownership of technical decisions on an ongoing basis. The relationship is continuous, not transactional.
No. For teams with an existing technical lead, we serve as a senior sounding board and strategic partner. For teams without one, we fill the gap until you're ready to hire full-time. Either way, our goal is to make your team stronger.
Most engagements begin within a week of the discovery call. We don't have long onboarding processes. We review your codebase, talk to your team and start contributing within the first few days.
On the Advisory tier: one architecture review session, one or two ad-hoc calls and async availability for urgent decisions via Slack. On the Embedded tier: weekly sprint participation, regular code review sessions, a monthly strategy session and full async availability.
Flexibility is built in. If a critical decision or launch needs extra time, we accommodate that. We bill for actual time and keep you informed, no surprises.
Very detailed. We break projects into epics, user stories and technical tasks with individual time estimates, assumptions, risks and dependencies. The output is a document your development team can execute against directly.
We audit against WCAG 2.1 AA as standard, which covers the vast majority of legal requirements globally. We can also audit against WCAG 2.1 AAA or Section 508 requirements on request. Every audit combines automated tooling with manual testing.
A detailed launch plan covering DNS configuration, CDN setup, redirect mapping, monitoring and alerting, rollback procedures and a communication timeline. On launch day, we are on call to manage deployment and respond to issues in real time.
Yes. Most of our engagements are collaborative. We work alongside your developers, designers and product managers. We provide the strategic framework and technical oversight while your team executes with our support.
The fractional CTO provides strategic leadership: architecture decisions, vendor evaluations, hiring guidance and technical direction. The fractional engineering team provides that plus the people who build the product. If you have developers but need someone to lead them, that's the CTO. If you need the developers too, that's the engineering team.
We work in your tools, your repos and your processes. Slack, Linear, Jira, GitHub, whatever you use. Our squad joins your standups, works your sprint cadence and deploys through your pipelines. From the outside, we look like your engineering team because we are.
Absolutely. That's a common path. Many clients start with a fractional CTO to define the architecture and technical strategy, then bring in the engineering team once there's a clear plan to execute against. The transition is seamless because the CTO who shaped the strategy stays on to lead delivery.
Need a CTO, an engineering team, or both?
Tell us where you are and where you're trying to get to. We'll recommend whether you need strategic leadership, a delivery team, or the full package, and get started within the week.
Services and Capabilities
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