Senior technical leadership—AI strategy, system architecture, team building, and hands-on delivery—for companies that need a real CTO without a full-time executive.
Quick Answer
A fractional CTO is an experienced technology executive who works with your company part-time or on a contract basis—providing senior technical leadership (strategy, architecture, team building, vendor decisions) at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire. For AI-first companies, a fractional CTO with hands-on agentic AI and MCP experience moves faster than a generalist executive and cheaper than a full-time one.
A full-time CTO hire takes 6–18 months to recruit, costs $250,000–$400,000+ annually before equity, and requires a stable enough roadmap to justify the headcount. Most companies that actually need a CTO need one now, not in a year—and need someone who can execute, not just manage.
A fractional CTO engagement starts in days, not months. You get a defined scope—AI architecture review, engineering team build-out, agentic system design, technical due diligence—with a clear deliverable and a known cost. When the scope is complete, you extend, transition to a full-time hire we helped you vet, or continue on retainer. No 6-month executive search, no full-time salary.
The cases where fractional is the right call: you have a technical product to build and no technical co-founder; you raised capital and need to hire engineers without a technical leader to evaluate them; you are integrating AI into existing software and need someone who has actually shipped production agentic systems—not someone who read the playbook last quarter.
Define which AI capabilities to build vs. buy, select the right LLM and orchestration stack, design multi-agent systems that integrate with your existing software, and create a technical roadmap your team can actually execute against.
Evaluate vendors without the sales spin: which no-code tools, cloud infrastructure, database choices, and API integrations fit your scale, security posture, and budget. We have built production systems on most of the stacks your vendors are pitching you.
Define hiring criteria, interview and evaluate engineers, establish code review and deployment standards, and provide technical direction to a team that may be fully outsourced, newly assembled, or somewhere in between.
For companies in real estate, legal, or healthcare-adjacent sectors, compliance is table stakes—not an afterthought. We design HIPAA-aligned systems by default, including secure data handling, access controls, and audit logging built into the architecture from day one.
Austin Archuleta is a Founder & AI Solutions Architect with 12+ years building software for high-growth teams. He is a graduate of the Cockrell School of Engineering at UT Austin, a former licensed real estate agent, and a co-founder of Scanther Mobile—a startup that was acquired, featured on CNBC's Mad Money, and produced 3 patents. He served as Chief Digital Officer at Advice Interactive Group before founding Moon Sherpa Labs.
His work spans agentic AI systems, MCP server development, HIPAA-compliant legal software, real estate CRM automation, and full-stack product development. He has built production systems for real estate teams, law firms, and growing businesses across Texas—not white-label templates, but custom architectures built to the specific constraints of each client.
This first-hand experience—running a real estate practice, managing law firm operations, shipping software products through multiple growth stages—is what separates this engagement from a consultant who has only read the playbook. You get a technical partner who has been on both sides of the systems you are trying to build.
You know what to build. You are not sure how to architect it, which stack to use, how to evaluate developer candidates, or what questions to ask vendors. A fractional CTO fills that gap without the six-month search for a technical co-founder who may never materialize.
Post-raise, the pressure is speed without wasted burn. A fractional CTO helps you design the right system the first time, hire developers you can actually evaluate, and avoid the architectural decisions that become expensive rewrites six months later.
LLM wrappers are not AI products. Production agentic AI systems require real orchestration design, tool integration via MCP, human-in-the-loop approval logic, retry and fallback handling, and cost management. We have built this stack for real clients in real estate and legal—not just prototypes. If you are building an AI product and want it to work reliably, that experience is the difference that matters.
A pragmatic architecture review—not a rewrite-everything sales pitch—identifies the specific bottlenecks costing you velocity. We prioritize by impact: which changes unlock speed now, and which can wait. The goal is momentum, not perfection.
It depends on the engagement scope—that is the point. A fractional CTO does exactly what your company needs most: architecture review one week, developer interviews the next, hands-on work on a specific AI integration when that is the bottleneck. The engagement is defined by your actual priorities, not a fixed job description.
Consultants give recommendations. Agencies deliver scope. A fractional CTO is accountable to the outcomes—strategy, architecture, team performance, shipped product. The engagement looks less like a deliverable handoff and more like having a technical co-founder who is embedded in your company part-time.
Engagements vary by scope and hours. A focused part-time engagement (strategy, architecture review, team oversight) typically starts in the range of $5,000–$10,000 per month. More intensive hands-on development work is priced accordingly. Contact us to discuss your scope and get a concrete proposal.
Yes. While we are based in Austin, Texas, fractional CTO engagements are fully remote and we work with companies across the United States. We work on-site for Austin-area clients when that is useful for team integration or on-site workshops.
Book a free 30-minute strategy call. We'll scope the engagement, define deliverables, and give you a clear picture of what we would cover—before any commitment.