Independent architect · fractional
Senior technical judgement, with nothing else to sell you.
Many fractional CTO offers come attached to a development team, so the advice tends to end with hiring more of their developers. I don't have a bench. You get architecture decisions, agency reviews and due diligence from someone whose fee doesn't change with what you decide to build.
Architecture decisions
The decision, the options, and why — written down.
- Architecture decision records your next architect can read
- Design reviews before the expensive part starts
- Build, buy or integrate, with costs on each
- Interface contracts between teams and vendors
Agency & offshore team reviews
Know what you're getting before the next invoice.
- Code and delivery review of the work so far
- Estimates and change requests checked against scope
- Security, testing and deployment practices
- A plain-language report for founders and boards
Technical due diligence
For investors, acquirers and large contracts.
- Architecture, code quality and scalability
- Security, data protection and licensing risks
- Team, process and key-person dependencies
- A risk-rated report with remediation costs
Vendor selection & RFPs
Choose a partner on evidence, not on the pitch.
- Requirements written so both sides can tell when it's done
- A scoring model agreed before the demos
- Reference checks and technical interviews
- Contract scope and acceptance criteria
Cloud cost & resilience
When the cloud bill and the uptime disagree.
- What you pay for, against what you actually use
- Single points of failure and untested backups
- A right-sized, reproducible environment
- Disaster-recovery plans that have been rehearsed
Engineering hiring support
Your first senior hire, or your next one.
- Role definitions that match the work
- Technical interviews and take-home reviews
- Onboarding plans for new engineers
- A hand-over when you hire a full-time CTO
How it works
A fixed block of hours, visible to you.
A retainer buys a fixed number of hours each month. Every hour is logged against your project and visible live in your client portal, with the decisions and documents behind it in the project wiki.
No minimum headcount and no developers to place.
Services in this area
Fractional architect
Standing architecture authority on a reserved block of hours, tracked in your portal.
Architecture review
An independent review of a design, a codebase or a vendor's work.
Technical due diligence
Code, team and infrastructure assessed for an investment or acquisition.
Solution blueprint
Architecture, integrations, environments and delivery plan for a new system.
Technology stack assessment
Stack options compared against what the system has to do.
Cloud migration strategy
Which workloads move, in what order, and what it costs to run them.
Disaster recovery planning
Recovery objectives, failover steps and a runbook that has been rehearsed.
Capacity & surge planning
Load modelling and the plan for your busiest day.
System architecture & design
Components, boundaries, data flows and interface specifications.
Architecture documentation
Decision records, diagrams and runbooks for a system you already run.
Next step