Fractional CTO

A senior technical leader hired part time, for a few days a month, instead of a full-time CTO.

Early companies need technical decisions (architecture, hiring, vendors, security, estimates) long before they can afford a full-time executive. A fractional CTO or tech lead makes those calls, reviews the work of developers or agencies and often still writes code. It works when the scope and the hours are written down; it fails as a vague advisory role nobody uses.

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Related terms

Forward Deployed Engineer: An engineer who works with a customer or business team to turn AI models into systems that run in their environment.
MVP (minimum viable product): The smallest version of a product that tests whether people want it enough to use or pay.
Build vs buy: The choice between paying for a ready-made product and building your own software, including what each costs over time.

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