Fractional CTO
Fractional CTO services for startups and scale-ups, from Sydney
No technical co-founder? A board asking questions you can’t answer yet? That’s the gap a fractional CTO fills. We sit on your side of the table, making the technology calls, keeping vendors honest, and giving founders and boards a straight answer, a day or two a week.
What’s included
- Technology strategy and a roadmap that matches the business plan
- Architecture decisions you won’t need to unwind in two years
- Hiring, structuring, and mentoring engineering teams
- Vendor and agency wrangling: scoping, pricing, accountability
- Board and investor comfort: clear reporting, honest risk
Fractional CTO vs full-time hire vs agency
Full-time CTO
A senior salary plus equity, and a long search before day one. The right call once the team and roadmap are big enough to need one every day.
Fractional CTO with Wobbit
The same senior decisions, a day or two a week, without the salary or the equity. In the room when it matters, not on the payroll when it doesn’t.
Dev agency alone
A team selling you a build, with nobody senior on your side of the table keeping the scope, the price, and the architecture honest.
How it works
Audit
Understand the business, the stack, and the risks that actually matter.
Roadmap
A technology plan and priorities that match the business plan, not a wish list.
In the room
Ongoing: the calls, the hiring, the vendor reviews, and board-ready reporting.
What it looks like at your stage
Pre-seed
Prove the idea is buildable, pick a stack you won’t regret, and keep the first build small and honest. Often a few hours a week.
Seed
Turn the raise into a roadmap, make the architecture calls, hire the first engineers, and give investors clear reporting. Typically a day a week.
Series A and beyond
Scale the team and the systems, fix what the sprint to product-market fit broke, and get the org ready for a full-time CTO. A day or two a week.
Who it’s for
- Founders without a technical co-founder who need senior technology decisions
- Scale-ups whose board or investors want clarity on the tech
- Companies between CTOs, or not yet ready for a full-time hire
- Teams choosing or managing an external build and wanting it kept honest
A fractional CTO for non-technical founders
If you can’t evaluate the answers you’re being given, every technology decision is a leap of faith. That’s the position most non-technical founders are in: an agency quoting a number you can’t sanity-check, a contractor recommending a stack you can’t assess, investors asking questions you have to relay to someone else.
A fractional CTO puts experience back in the room. We translate the technical into the commercial, vet the quotes and the people, and make the calls you’d otherwise be taking on faith. You stay in control of the business; you’re just no longer exposed on the technology.
- Every technical decision and trade-off translated into plain English
- Quotes, proposals, and timelines sanity-checked before you sign
- Engineers vetted and hired by someone who’s done the hiring before
- Investor and board questions answered with confidence, not relayed
How engagements work
Three common shapes. Every engagement starts with a short proposal: scope, price, and timeline in plain English, with no long lock-in.
Advisory
A few hours a week
A senior sounding board: decisions reviewed before they’re made, vendors kept honest, board questions answered before they’re asked.
One day a week
The most common shape
The roadmap, the architecture, the hiring, and the vendor management, owned. Enough presence to lead the technology without the full-time cost.
Two days a week
For heavier lifts
A rebuild, a first engineering team, an acquisition. When the work is thicker we scale up, and scale back down when it isn’t.
FAQ
- What is a fractional CTO?
- A fractional CTO is an experienced technology leader who works with you part-time, typically a day or two a week, making the senior technology decisions a full-time CTO would, without the full-time cost or equity.
- How much does a fractional CTO cost?
- Engagements are scoped to the work, usually a day or two a week. We agree scope, price, and timeline up front in a short proposal, with no long lock-in. Book a call for a quote.
- When does a startup need a fractional CTO?
- When the technology decisions are outpacing the experience in the room: raising money, choosing an architecture, hiring engineers, or being asked board questions you can’t yet answer with confidence.
- How is this different from a full-time CTO or an agency?
- You get CTO-level decisions without a full-time salary, and an advocate on your side of the table when working with agencies and vendors, rather than another party selling you a build.
- Do you only work with Sydney companies?
- No. We work worldwide, from Sydney. Australian founders get same-timezone access; overseas clients get overlap hours agreed up front and the same senior attention either way.
- I’m a non-technical founder. What would you actually do for me?
- Translate every technical decision into commercial terms, sanity-check the quotes and timelines you’re being given, vet and hire engineers you couldn’t assess yourself, and answer investor questions with you rather than for you.
- Can you manage our existing dev agency or offshore team?
- Yes. Vendor and agency wrangling is a core part of the job: scoping the work, keeping the pricing honest, and holding the output to a standard, from your side of the table.
- What happens when we’re ready for a full-time CTO?
- We help you hire them: scoping the role, running the interview loop, and handing over cleanly. A fractional CTO who’s doing the job properly is working towards replacing themselves.