A senior technical partner, without hiring a full-time CTO.
Non-technical founders have to make technical decisions every week: what to build first, who to hire, whether an agency’s estimate is sane, why the app crashed. I’ve made those calls on products from first version to five years in production. As your fractional CTO, I make them with you, part-time.
- 1You, the founder
- 2Me: specs and decisions
- 3Your developers or agency
- 4Releases in your accounts
Who this is for
- You’re a non-technical founder with an app idea or an early product, and no one senior to turn to.
- You work with an agency or freelancers, and can’t tell whether what you’re getting is good.
- You’re not ready for a full-time CTO, but the product is too important to run on guesswork.
What I do in a typical month
Turn ideas into written specs,
clear enough for any developer to build from. I did this on the merchant payments team at Xendit.
Make the architecture calls:
how the app, backend, payments and data fit together, chosen for where the product is going.
Plan and run delivery.
Break the roadmap into tickets, assign the work, and manage builds and releases.
Review what gets built:
code quality, security basics and whether estimates match reality.
Keep you in control.
Store accounts, backend, domains and code in your name, with the access documented.
Answer the technical questions
from investors, partners or new hires.
How it’s different from hiring a developer
A developer builds what you ask for. A fractional CTO helps decide what should be asked for, and then makes sure it’s built right. In practice I do both: I plan the work and build much of it myself, so decisions and delivery don’t drift apart.
Proof
All work
No Yelling
Technical owner of a live product since 2020, covering every decision from the first version to version 3.1.
5+ years · 4.8★
- 1Tasks, goals & focus
- 2Earn rewards
- 3Pets grow, room upgrades
- 4Come back tomorrow
Dazzl
“Zoraiz has owned this end to end.” Ten months of ownership of a complex product.
End-to-end ownership
Also: Merchant Payments at Xendit, where I wrote technical specs, managed build delivery and assigned tickets as a senior developer on the team.
“His coding skills are top tier, but what truly sets him apart is his sense of ownership. He treats this project as if it were his own.”
Questions clients ask
What is a fractional CTO?
A fractional CTO is a senior technical leader who works with your company part-time instead of full-time. You get experienced technical judgment (architecture, planning, hiring and delivery) for a fraction of the cost of a full-time executive.
When does a startup need a fractional CTO?
Usually at one of three points:
- Before the first build, to choose what to build and how.
- When an agency or freelancers are building, and nobody on your side can judge the work.
- When a live product starts to struggle with bugs, scale or slow releases.
What does a fractional CTO cost?
Less than a full-time CTO, because you pay only for the time you use. The cost depends on hours per week and how hands-on the role is, and I’ll quote it after a short call.
What are the risks of hiring a fractional CTO?
The main one is someone who advises but isn’t accountable for results. I avoid that by staying close to the build. I write the specs, manage releases and often write the code, so advice and outcome stay connected.
Can you work with my existing developers or agency?
Yes. I can set direction, write specs and review work while your current team builds.
How is a fractional CTO different from a technical co-founder?
A co-founder takes equity and commits full-time for the long run. A fractional CTO is paid for part-time work and can start this week. Many founders use one until the product and the team are ready for a full-time technical lead.
Need someone to own the technical side?
Tell me where your product is today. I’ll tell you what I’d focus on in the first month.
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