AI Strategy & Consulting

Fractional AI CTO

Senior technical leadership without a full-time hire. Architecture and code reviews, a straight answer on AI strategy, help choosing vendors, a roadmap that matches your stage, and mentoring for your engineers, on a month-to-month retainer.

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Fractional AI CTO

You need the judgement, not the full-time salary

A lot of teams are at the point where technical decisions have real consequences, choosing a stack, evaluating an AI vendor, setting a roadmap, but not at the point where a full-time CTO makes financial sense. The result is that those decisions get made under-informed, or deferred. A fractional arrangement covers the judgement calls: regular reviews, someone to pressure-test a plan, and a steady hand mentoring the engineers you do have.

What the retainer covers

  • Regular architecture and code reviews, with findings your team can act on
  • AI strategy guidance: what is worth doing, what is hype, and what order to do things in
  • Vendor and tool evaluation, so you are not choosing a platform on a sales call alone
  • A technical roadmap matched to your stage, budget, and team size
  • Mentoring for your engineers, raising the level of the team over time
  • Availability for the decisions that come up between reviews

How it works

  1. 1

    Onboard

    First 1–2 weeks

    We spend the first weeks understanding your product, stack, team, and the decisions on the table.

  2. 2

    Set a cadence

    1 week

    A regular rhythm of reviews and check-ins is agreed, sized to what you need and what the retainer covers.

  3. 3

    Review and advise

    Ongoing, monthly

    Architecture, code, and plans are reviewed on that cadence, with written findings and clear recommendations.

  4. 4

    Be on call for decisions

    Ongoing

    Between reviews, we are reachable for the vendor choice, the hiring question, or the architecture call that cannot wait.

  5. 5

    Grow the team

    Ongoing, over months

    Over time the focus shifts to mentoring your engineers so more of the judgement lives in-house.

How we work

How we deliver

  1. 1

    Discovery & Scoping

    1-3 days

    We start by understanding the actual problem and your existing systems, not just the brief.

  2. 2

    Architecture & Plan

    2-4 days

    We map the technical approach and integration points before any code gets written.

  3. 3

    Build

    1-8 weeks, scoped to your project

    AI-augmented development that moves fast without skipping review.

  4. 4

    Test & Launch

    2-3 days

    Real testing against real scenarios before it touches a live user.

  5. 5

    Tune & Support

    Ongoing

    We monitor and refine in the weeks after launch. This isn't a handoff and disappear.

What you get out of it

  • Technical decisions made with senior input instead of guesswork
  • A roadmap that fits your actual stage and budget
  • Vendor choices tested before you commit
  • Engineers who level up from working with someone more experienced

Questions we get about this

It is a retainer for judgement and guidance, not a full-time schedule. In practice that means a set cadence of reviews and check-ins plus availability for decisions in between. The exact shape is agreed at the start and adjusted as needs change.

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