Ongoing senior engineering leadership without hiring a full-time CTO or VP Engineering too early
For companies that need leadership leverage after an initial diagnostic, or where the founder, CEO, or CTO needs a senior operator alongside them for technical direction, delivery governance, hiring, and architecture decisions.
Use a retainer when the company needs recurring technical leadership, not another contractor
The retainer is not sold as “one day per week”. It is an ongoing leadership cadence around decisions, delivery control, team design, hiring, and technical narrative.
- The founder or CEO needs senior technical leadership before hiring a permanent CTO or VP Engineering.
- The CTO is stretched and needs an experienced operator to support delivery, architecture, hiring, or organisational design.
- The company has completed a diagnostic and needs help turning recommendations into operating discipline.
- Engineering decisions need to be made faster and communicated more clearly to investors, board members, customers, or internal teams.
- The leadership team needs better governance around delivery commitments, architecture trade-offs, vendors, or contractors.
What ongoing support can include
Weekly CTO office hours
A recurring senior leadership cadence for decisions, risks, trade-offs, escalation, delivery concerns, and founder or executive support.
Roadmap and architecture decisions
Support on platform direction, build versus buy, scalability, reliability, security, technical debt, AI workflow changes, and enterprise readiness.
Hiring and team design
Guidance on role definition, leadership gaps, engineering manager needs, interview bar, senior hiring, and the next version of the org structure.
Technical narrative support
Help explain technical direction, architecture risk, delivery progress, and engineering operating model improvements to investors, boards, or strategic customers.
A leadership cadence tied to outcomes
Decision support
Practical guidance on engineering decisions that affect delivery, technical risk, hiring, customer commitments, or company strategy.
Delivery governance
Cadence, accountability, escalation, metrics, roadmap discipline, and operating rituals that help leadership regain control of delivery.
Leadership leverage
Support for founders, CEOs, CTOs, and engineering leads who need more senior judgement in the system without adding a full-time executive yet.
Need a senior technical leader in the system, but not a full-time executive yet?
Use the retainer after a diagnostic, during a leadership gap, or while preparing for a permanent CTO, VP Engineering, or Head of Engineering hire.