What it is
The technical seat, filled properly: direction, architecture, hiring, delivery discipline, and the engineering relationship with your board — held by someone who has done it at scale and still writes code. You get the judgement of a CTO who has run platforms across twenty countries, without needing to hire one.
What you get
- An owner for the technology decisions, not an advisor who leaves you the homework.
- Technical direction and architecture accountable to one person, not diffused across the team.
- Hands-on hiring input — interviews, scorecards, and the calls on who joins.
- Delivery discipline — the roadmap pressure-tested against what the team can actually ship.
- The engineering relationship with the board — someone who can sit in that room, and read a pull request the next day.
- A quarterly review of the engagement itself — scope, days, and fit, kept honest.
Who it is for
- Seed to Series A companies with engineers, but no senior technical head.
- Non-technical founders whose CTO just left, who need continuity in the role.
- PE and VC portfolio companies needing interim technical cover.
- Boards who need one accountable technical voice, not a rotating cast of contractors.
Who it is NOT for
- Not a full-time hire — five days a week is a different conversation.
- Not a single decision or a written verdict — that's the audit.
- Not hands-on-keyboard delivery every day — for one bounded, already-defined outcome, that's a fixed-scope build.
- Not for a company that already has senior technical leadership in place — this fills a gap, it doesn't duplicate one.
How an engagement starts
- Fit check. Email the situation: team size, what's missing, what "good" would look like. A short call confirms fit and the likely day count.
- Shape it together. What the remit actually is — technical direction, hiring, architecture, delivery, the board room — written down plainly so we both know what good looks like.
- First quarter. The seat starts: technical direction, hiring input, delivery discipline, and the board relationship, from day one.
- Kept honest. We look at it openly as it goes — it continues because it is working, never because you are locked in.