Fractional & Contract
CTO / CEO
For funded pre-seed and seed founders who need to ship the MVP and hire the team that takes them to the next round.
I step in as fractional CTO, contract CTO, or interim CEO for a few months at a time, build alongside your team, and hand it off to the full-time leaders we recruit together.
When founders call me
Three situations come up over and over. If one of these is yours, we should talk.
You can't get to MVP
Your founding engineer left, the contractor you hired is shipping the wrong thing, or the build keeps slipping. You need someone in the room who can architect it and write the code.
You're between technical leaders
Your CTO left, the search is taking longer than expected, and the team is drifting. You need an interim hand on the wheel while you recruit the right full-time leader.
You're building an AI product and don't know where to start
You raised on an AI thesis but the team is wired for a different stack. You need someone who's shipped production AI/ML and can set the technical direction before you burn runway.
What I do
Generalist by design — fifteen years of shipping AI/ML, web, mobile, and infrastructure. I do the work and lead the people doing it.
- →Architect and build the MVP end-to-end — web, mobile, AI/ML, infra
- →Stand in as interim CTO or CEO while you raise or recruit
- →Hire and ramp the founding engineering team that replaces me
- →Set technical direction for AI-native products and agentic systems
- →Code review, hiring rubric, and architecture decisions on retainer
- →Investor-facing technical diligence and roadmap support
How engagements work
Case-by-case. Fixed scope or ongoing retainer. Always with a clear handoff plan.
Diagnostic call
45 minutes. We figure out whether the problem is technical, organizational, or strategic — and whether I am actually the right person.
Scoped proposal
Two-week pilot or full engagement. Fixed deliverables, fixed price, clear exit criteria.
Build and lead
2 to 6 months on average. I write code, run standups, make architecture calls, and run hiring loops.
Handoff
I help you hire the full-time CTO or lead engineer who replaces me, and ramp them in.
Stuck on the build, the hire, or the call?
Send me what you are working on and what is in your way. I will tell you, honestly, whether I can help.