Fractional CTO
The technical leadership
your company needs —
without the full-time cost.
Strategy, architecture, fundraising support, and engineering team alignment — on your schedule. Senior Rails expertise from a team that has built, scaled, and rescued products across 15+ years.
Scope of Work
What a Fractional CTO
actually does
The title varies — what matters is the outcome. We own the technical decisions that move your company forward, so you don't have to make them alone or get them wrong.
🗺
Technology Roadmap
Define the technical strategy that supports your business goals. What to build, in what order, with what team — translated into a plan your board and investors can understand.
🏗
Architecture Decisions
The decisions that are expensive to undo — infrastructure, data models, API design, third-party services. We make them with 15 years of context on what Rails apps look like at scale.
👥
Engineering Team Alignment
Hiring plans, team structure, sprint processes, code review culture, and onboarding standards. We set engineers up to ship reliably and grow professionally.
💰
Fundraising Support
Technical due diligence preparation, investor Q&A, architecture documentation, and technical sections of pitch decks. We've helped companies raise from Seed through Series B.
🔍
Technical Audits
Honest assessment of your current stack, architecture, and engineering processes. What's working, what's creating risk, and what to address before it becomes a problem.
🤝
Vendor & Partner Management
Evaluating technology vendors, managing development agencies, negotiating SLAs, and holding external teams accountable — so you don't have to.
The Case For Fractional
Full-time CTO vs.
Fractional CTO
A full-time CTO makes sense when you have 15+ engineers and a complex technical organization. Before that, fractional is almost always the better investment.
| What you need | Fractional CTO | Full-time CTO | No CTO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior Rails expertise | ✓ Specialized | Varies by hire | ✗ Missing |
| Time to value | ✓ Week one | 3–6 months to hire | Immediate (no cost) |
| Monthly cost | ✓ Fraction of salary | $250k–$400k+ / yr | ✓ $0 |
| Strategic guidance | ✓ Full scope | ✓ Full scope | ✗ Founder-led, ad hoc |
| Fundraising support | ✓ Included | If available | ✗ Gap in due diligence |
| Architecture decisions | ✓ Owned | ✓ Owned | ✗ Made by developers |
| Risk if it doesn't work out | ✓ Low — cancel monthly | High — severance, disruption | Ongoing tech debt |
Who It's For
Built for companies at
an inflection point
The Fractional CTO engagement works best when there's a specific technical decision ahead — a fundraise, a scaling problem, a team to build, or a platform to modernize.
🌱
Founders without a technical co-founder
You're building something real but making technical decisions without the expertise to evaluate them. We become your technical co-founder on a flexible basis — no equity required.
📈
Series A companies scaling their team
You've raised, you're hiring engineers, and you need someone to set the technical culture, architecture standards, and hiring bar before the wrong patterns get established.
💼
Companies preparing for fundraising
Investors do technical due diligence. We prepare your architecture documentation, address tech debt, and handle the technical Q&A so you don't lose deals to avoidable red flags.
🔄
Companies between CTOs
Your CTO left. You need continuity while you find a permanent replacement. We bridge the gap — maintaining momentum, supporting your team, and helping you hire the right person.
Engagement Models
Three ways to
work together
We scope Fractional CTO engagements based on what you actually need — not a one-size package. Here are the most common structures.
Starter
Strategic Advisory
Regular strategic sessions, async availability, and documentation review. For founders who need a senior technical sounding board without day-to-day involvement.
2 strategy sessions / month
Async Q&A (Slack/email)
Architecture review on request
Investor Q&A prep
Most Common
Core
Active Leadership
Embedded part-time leadership — attending standups, driving architecture decisions, managing vendors, and owning the technical roadmap alongside your team.
Weekly team standups
Architecture ownership
Hiring support & interviews
Roadmap planning & board prep
Vendor & agency management
Intensive
Due Diligence Ready
A focused engagement to prepare your technical organization for fundraising, acquisition, or a major scaling event. Time-boxed, outcome-specific.
Full technical audit
Architecture documentation
Tech debt remediation plan
Investor data room prep
Due diligence Q&A support
What It Looks Like
A typical first
90 days
Here's how an Active Leadership engagement typically unfolds for a Series A company with a live Rails product and a team of 4–6 engineers.
📅
Series A SaaS · Rails platform · 5 engineers
Active Leadership engagement · 90-day view
Week
1–2
1–2
Orientation & Audit
We read the codebase, review infrastructure, meet every engineer 1:1, and sit in on existing processes. No changes yet — just listening. Deliver a written findings report at the end of week 2.
Week
3–4
3–4
Technical Roadmap
Work with the founder and product team to align the technical roadmap with business goals. Identify the 3–5 architectural decisions that need to be made in the next 6 months — and make them.
Month
2
2
Team & Process
Establish code review standards, sprint cadence improvements, and documentation practices. Begin hiring process for any gaps — write job descriptions, screen candidates, run technical interviews.
Month
3
3
Investor Preparation
Architecture diagrams, security posture documentation, scalability narrative, and technical due diligence package — ready for the Series B process. Practice technical Q&A with the founder.
Day
90+
90+
Ongoing or Transition
Continue as ongoing Fractional CTO, reduce scope as the company grows into its own technical leadership, or support hiring a full-time CTO and hand off cleanly. Always your choice.
Who Leads This
Senior leadership with
real product experience
Our Fractional CTO engagements are led by JetRockets' senior leadership — not staffed to a junior consultant. Depending on your needs, you work with the person whose depth best matches your challenge.
Igor Aleksandrov
CTO & Co-founder, JetRockets
Igor brings over 20 years of software engineering experience, specializing in Ruby on Rails since 2008. A recognized Docker Captain and open source contributor, he leads JetRockets' engineering culture with a focus on pragmatic architecture, developer experience, and real business value. He has guided teams through complex platform migrations, cloud infrastructure on AWS, and modern Hotwire/Turbo-driven Rails applications — including long-running work on Safari Portal, a travel CRM built for scale.
20+ years engineering
Rails since 2008
Docker Captain
AWS · Hotwire · Turbo
Aleksei Solilin
Head of Front-End & Co-founder, JetRockets
Aleksei brings 15+ years of experience across the full Rails stack, with deep specialization in frontend architecture and mobile technologies. He has led teams through complex product builds, established component systems and design systems that scale, and driven technical decisions on products where UI performance and mobile experience are business-critical.
15+ years experience
Rails · React · React Native
Frontend architecture
Mobile development
Alexander Ivashkin
Full-Stack Tech Lead, JetRockets
Alexander is a true full-stack engineer with 10+ years building complex web systems — equally fluent in frontend and backend. For more than 7 years he has led projects as a technical manager: owning team coordination, technology selection, and the entire technical direction of products. His current stack includes TypeScript, React, GraphQL, Tailwind, and Ruby on Rails.
10+ years experience
TypeScript · React · GraphQL
Ruby on Rails
7+ years team leadership
FAQ
Common questions
It depends on the engagement model and your current needs. Strategic Advisory is typically 4–8 hours/month. Active Leadership is usually 8–16 hours/month. Due Diligence Ready is more intensive and time-boxed. We scope the hours honestly at the start and adjust as the engagement evolves.
We work with your existing team — we're not a staffing replacement. The Fractional CTO role is to lead, align, and develop the people already there. If there are hiring gaps, we help fill them. If there are performance issues, we address them constructively. The goal is to make your team stronger, not to become a dependency.
Yes. Many clients combine the Fractional CTO engagement with one of our development services — a development retainer, an MVP build, or a Rails upgrade. This is actually a natural fit: the CTO role sets direction, and the development team executes it. We scope them separately so you know exactly what you're paying for.
We support this and can help with the search. When you hire a full-time CTO, we do a structured handoff — documentation, context transfer, and introduction meetings with the team. We can also stay on in an advisory capacity during the new CTO's onboarding period if that's helpful.
Yes. An NDA is standard for every engagement. We also disclose any potential conflicts before starting and decline engagements where conflicts exist. If you're in a sensitive competitive space, we're happy to discuss the specifics on a preliminary call before any paperwork is signed.
Get Started
Ready for senior technical
leadership that moves fast?
Tell us where you are — fundraising, scaling, between CTOs, or just making too many technical decisions alone. We'll tell you honestly whether and how we can help.
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