Fractional CTO · Los Angeles

Fractional CTO
in Los Angeles

Senior technical leadership without the $300K base.

We embed as fractional CTO for founders in Los Angeles 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.

from $4,000Monthly engagementFlat-price, your code

Get a Fractional CTO quote Back to Los Angeles overview

What you get

Concretely, by the time we hand over

Weekly 1:1 with founder, monthly board-style technical update
Architecture decisions documented as RFCs, not as Slack threads that disappear
Hiring scorecards, take-home rubrics, final-round technical interviews run by us
Code review on your team's PRs — fewer regressions, faster reviewer cycle
Optional hands-on weeks when a critical build is behind

Why this works for Los Angeles

The local math

LA is the underrated tech hub of 2026. Defense in Costa Mesa (Anduril, Apex Space). Healthcare and media-tech in Santa Monica. Creator-economy products everywhere from Venice to El Segundo. Hiring senior engineers means competing with $250K offers from VCs who won't admit they pay SF-level comp. We don't pretend otherwise — we just ship, flat-priced.

Year-one outlay for a single senior hire in Los Angeles: ~$310K. Our fractional cto engagement starts at $4,000.

Stack

What we use for fractional cto

ArchitectureHiringCode ReviewRoadmapInfrastructureAI Strategy

Why us

Why founders in Los Angeles 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

FAQ

Common questions about fractional cto in Los Angeles

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

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Fractional CTO elsewhere

We ship fractional cto for founders in

Ready to ship fractional cto in Los Angeles?

30-minute call → flat-price quote in 24 hours → first deploy inside two weeks.

Start the call See Los Angeles overview