Fractional CTO · Austin

Fractional CTO
in Austin

Senior technical leadership without the $300K base.

We embed as fractional CTO for founders in Austin who need senior technical leadership but aren't ready for a full-time hire. Architecture decisions, hiring rubrics, code review for your existing team, and hands-on execution when something needs to ship today.

Get a Fractional CTO quote Austin overview

Engagement shape

From

$4,000

Flat price, quoted after 30-min call

Timeline

Monthly engagement

First production deploy

1

Senior engineer, named

Day 1

Code in your GitHub

$0

Retainer, equity, lock-in

How this works

One AI-native engineer.
The output of a team.

One senior engineer plus AI agents now ships fractional cto that used to need a four-person team. Same code quality, half the cost, three-week timelines instead of three months. Built for pre-seed to Series A founders in Austin who need to ship before the next round closes.

The local read

Why fractional cto is hard in Austin

Austin's tech wave brought the SF cost structure with it. 60+ days to fill the role. $310K all-in for the kind of engineer you actually want. And the local agency option is mostly staffing shops billing hourly with a bench problem you'll end up subsidizing.

We're the other thing. One engineer owns your build from spec to deploy. Flat price quoted up front — not by the hour, not by milestone padding. Code in your GitHub from commit one. When the build ends, you walk away clean: no retainer, no notice period, no key-person dependency you didn't sign up for.

Hiring one senior leader here is a ~$310K year-one outlay and a 60–90 day search. Our fractional cto engagement starts at $4,000 with a first deploy in Monthly engagement.

Did you know · Austin

South by Southwest started in 1987 as a music conference. The interactive (tech) track launched in 1994 with around 150 attendees. It now pulls north of 50,000.

Time zone

--:--:--

CT

We work on Central Time, so we overlap with your in-house team, your investors, and your customers in the same window.

Sectors in Austin

AI and ML toolingDefense techRoboticsB2B SaaSConsumer product

Stack we use

ArchitectureHiringCode ReviewRoadmapInfrastructureAI Strategy

What you actually get

Concrete deliverables.
Live in Monthly engagement.

No discovery phase that bills for itself. No Figma-only delivery. Every item below is something you can open, click, and ship to a user.

01

Weekly 1:1 with founder, monthly board-style technical update

02

Architecture decisions documented as RFCs, not as Slack threads that disappear

03

Hiring scorecards, take-home rubrics, final-round technical interviews run by us

04

Code review on your team's PRs — fewer regressions, faster reviewer cycle

05

Optional hands-on weeks when a critical build is behind

Why us

Why founders in Austin pick us for this

01

We've been the technical owner on 50+ products — the failure modes are pattern-recognized, not theorized

02

Hands-on when you need it: not just a strategy deck, the senior engineer still ships code

03

No equity ask, no notice-period games — month-to-month

04

Cheaper than the recruiter fee on a single bad CTO hire

Fractional CTO we've shipped

Founders we shipped fractional cto with

Real founders, real product, real testimonials. The kind of fractional cto work we'd do for you in Austin.

EdTech Platform · 2024

Xperiencify

Gamified online course platform that increased student completion rates by 300%. We built a complete learning management system with gamification mechanics, progress tracking, and social features.

Visit the product

Deeper reads

More on fractional cto from our blog

Same engagement model, written up long-form — pricing tiers, workflows, anti-patterns.

2026-05-23·8 mins

MVP Cost in 2026: Real Numbers From $5K to $50K

Five tiers, what each one ships, where the price comes from, and the work we won't take at the bottom of the range.

Read on the blog

2026-05-09·11 mins

How We Use Claude Code in Production: Workflows, Costs, Anti-Patterns

30+ production builds with Claude Code as primary tool. What works, what gets people in trouble, exact prompt patterns, monthly bill.

Read on the blog

2026-05-02·9 mins

Hire vs Engage: The 2026 Math With AI Agents

A senior engineer in 2026 costs more (year-1 outlay) and is harder to find (60–90 day pipelines). The decision math everyone uses for this is out of date.

Read on the blog

FAQ

Common questions about fractional cto
in Austin

How much of your time do we get?

+

Plans typically range 10–30 hours/month depending on scope. We're not your only commitment, but we set a fixed window every week that's yours — same day, same hours.

Is the price really flat?

+

Yes. After a 30-minute call we send a single number and a scope you can accept or reject. No hourly billing, no change-order games. If we underestimate, we eat it.

Can you hire engineers for us?

+

Yes — full hiring loop: writing the JD, sourcing channels (we have a network), screening, technical take-home design, final-round interview. Most CTOs we've helped hire run their first sprint inside a month of starting.

Will you keep coding if we hire a full CTO later?

+

Happy to. Many founders bring on a full-time CTO and keep us as senior IC for 2–3 months while they ramp. No ego — we'll happily report to whoever you hire.

Who owns the code?

+

You do, from commit one. The repository is created in your GitHub org. Infrastructure is provisioned in your cloud account. We don't host your stack on ours and we don't lock you in.

More questions → /faq/partnership · /faq/team · /faq/scaling

Got a question about fractional cto in Austin?