Fractional CTO. Technology leadership, on a fixed fee.
For companies of roughly ten to a hundred and fifty people with no structured IT function. We take on system ownership, modernize the tools your teams use daily, and hand everything over when the mandate is done. Fixed fee, delivery risk on our side.
What a fractional CTO actually does
A senior technical leader working for you on a fixed-fee engagement, without an employment contract. They map the systems you already run, pay down the technical debt that slows everyone down, defend architecture decisions in front of your leadership, and build a roadmap tied to the business rather than to technology fashion. You will also see this called a part-time CTO, a virtual CTO, or CTO as a service. It is the same job: someone who decides, secures, documents and hands over, then stops when the need is resolved.
Fixed fee means we carry the overrun
On a time-and-materials arrangement, a slipping project produces a larger invoice, and the risk sits with you. On a fixed fee, a slipping project eats our margin instead. That single difference changes how the work gets scoped: we spend real effort up front challenging assumptions and naming the traps, because guessing wrong costs us and not you. It also means the conversation about a new request stops being about days and starts being about scope.
Four stages. Nothing left vague.
From the paid assessment to the documented exit, each stage has a deliverable and a contractual commitment. That sequence is the offer.
- 01
A paid assessment, and the deliverable is yours
We start with a short, paid technical assessment rather than a free proposal pitched in a meeting. It produces a costed action plan: scope, risks, sequencing, timeline. You own that document. If you decide not to continue with us, you can hand it to another vendor and execute it.
Yours to keep, either way
- 02
Fixed-fee delivery, not time and materials
We commit contractually on scope, dates, quality criteria and no data loss during migrations. Short cycles, regular demos, a staging environment you can poke at without fear of breaking production. We do not bill hours, we bill the deliverable.
No day rate, no open-ended discovery
- 03
A go-live with a tested rollback
Progressive migration, a documented cutover plan, and a rollback path tested before the switch, not improvised on the night. We watch the critical indicators through the first weeks after go-live.
Rollback tested before D-day
- 04
A prepared exit
Documentation, a decision log explaining why each significant call was made, training for one person on your side, and full transfer of code, accounts and access. On the day we leave, you can run it without us.
No residual dependency
The number we are willing to be judged on
Measured in July 2026, across roughly thirty engagements delivered since 2019: no client has ever had to call us back on an emergency after handover. The only follow-on contracts signed were to extend a warranty period or widen the knowledge transfer. Never to repair something we had left behind.
We are a small team by design: three operators who have worked together for more than twenty years, based in Paris, delivering for clients in France, across Europe and on international public-sector programmes. Past work includes a national address database and a smart-city platform delivered for Expertise France, infrastructure modernization for the corporate IT department of an international distribution group, and a field-reporting application used by an NGO whose data reaches the French Ministry of Agriculture.
Four questions worth asking.
-
What is a fractional CTO?
A senior technical leader made available to your company on a fixed-fee engagement, without an employment contract. They bring, or become, your technology leadership function: mapping what exists, paying down technical debt, defending architecture decisions to the board, and building a roadmap tied to the business. The market also calls this a part-time CTO, a virtual CTO or CTO as a service. Same job. Someone who decides, secures and hands over, then stops when the need is resolved.
-
Fractional CTO, a hire, or a senior freelancer?
Hiring a senior CTO means several months of search and a long commitment, for a need that is often finite. A senior contractor ships code but will not defend an architecture decision in front of your board or manage your vendors. A fractional CTO starts within weeks, works to a fixed scope and a fixed fee, and stops when the mandate is done.
-
What happens to the work when the engagement ends?
Everything transfers: source code, documentation, accounts, credentials, and a decision log that explains the reasoning behind each significant choice. One person on your side is trained during the engagement, not in the final week. That last point matters more than it sounds, because knowledge builds alongside the system rather than at the end.
-
What if the person leading the work becomes unavailable?
You are never tied to a single individual. Three operators who have worked together for more than twenty years cover your account, and everything is documented so it can be picked up without us. On roughly thirty engagements since 2019, no client has had to call us back on an emergency after handover, and the only follow-on contracts signed were to extend the warranty, never to repair something.
Twenty minutes, no proposal attached.
You describe the situation, we say plainly whether we can help. If a hire or a different format would serve you better, we will tell you that instead.