Fractional CTO · DevOps · Platform Engineering
CTO-level decisions,
without the
full-time hire.
Most recently at:Vercel·Deliveroo·Scout24·Civica
Most growing teams hit a stage where engineering decisions outrun the founders’ bandwidth: roadmap, hiring, architecture, the board narrative. I step into that seat for one or two days a week. Long enough to make the calls, not long enough to burn a salary.
Services
Fractional CTO
CTO-level decisions, without the full-time hire.
Embedded with your leadership: in your stand-ups, your hiring loops, your board prep. Direct, no-pitch communication with founders. Independent enough to tell you what you don't want to hear, and available enough to actually move things.
- —Engineering strategy and roadmap ownership
- —Hiring, team structure, and engineering culture
- —Stakeholder and board-level technical communication
- —Leadership across product, engineering, and the business
- Cadence
- 1–2 days per week
- Term
- 3-month minimum
- Format
- Remote, with periodic in-person time
- Onboarding
- 2-week ramp
- —You're between CTOs, with a hiring gap to bridge
- —Engineering is becoming strategic but the founders are stretched
- —The board wants someone technical accountable for the roadmap
- —You're scaling past what the founding team can carry alone
From £1,800/day. EUR or USD on request. No equity, no benefits overhead.
Platform & DevOps Advisory
When your platform holds your engineers back instead of helping them ship.
- —Cloud-native architecture and Kubernetes platform design
- —CI/CD pipeline maturity and developer experience
- —Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Pulumi, Helm)
- —Observability, reliability, and incident management
Priced per engagement.
Technical Due Diligence
Don't discover the technical debt after you've committed.
- —Codebase, architecture, and technical debt review
- —Engineering team capability and process evaluation
- —Risk identification and a concrete plan for what to fix
- —Written report with findings and recommendations
Priced per engagement.
Most engagements take one of three shapes. The right fit depends on where you are and what you need.
Advisory Retainer
Ongoing strategic input, typically one day per week. Right for companies that need a senior technical voice consistently, whether shaping engineering culture as a fractional CTO or providing ongoing platform and infrastructure leadership.
Embedded Sprint
Hands-on work focused on a specific problem: rebuilding a CI/CD pipeline, landing a Kubernetes platform, migrating to IaC, or untangling cloud spend. Fixed duration, with agreed deliverables at the end.
One-off Assessment
A fixed-scope technical audit or due diligence review with a written output. Covers codebases, architectures, and platform maturity. Ideal for investors, acquirers, or founders who need an independent picture before a decision.
Seen enough? Let’s talk.
Book a discovery callBuilt on real experience
For two decades I’ve watched engineering teams hit the same wall: leadership can’t compensate for tooling that’s working against them.
My PhD researched it. DevOps then platform engineering became the structural answer. That’s the lever I lean on.
Vercel Germany
European GTM for the frontend cloud.
Deliveroo
Order delivery at European scale.
Scout24
DACH's largest classifieds business.
Civica
UK public sector software at scale.
Wayfair
Payments engineering for global e-commerce.
Swarm64
Postgres acceleration startup.
Trusted by founders and engineering teams across Europe and beyond.
“His broad network of business relationships was able to help us with tough challenges and is a testament to his excellent character and style.”
“If your engineering team needs a people leader with a strong background in agility, you would be lucky to work with Paul.”
He impressed me several times with his ability to read customers within no time: their needs, their wishes, their fears.
He has always worked in a manner of consulting the engineering teams and helping improve productivity rather than micromanaging.
Paul is a hugely capable and knowledgeable FOSS advocate who can turn his hand to almost everything.
Paul is an incredible leader, drawing from an interest in servant leadership. He communicates clearly across teams with diverse language skills and perspectives.
What founders ask before booking the call.
How many hours per week?+
One or two days per week, mapped to your team's rhythm. In stand-ups, hiring loops, and board prep, and available for the decisions that need a senior technical voice. Less than that doesn't move the needle. More, and you probably need a full-time hire.
How does billing work?+
Monthly retainer, billed in advance. The retainer reflects committed days per month, not hourly tracking. You get senior in-the-room availability without timesheets to review. No equity, no benefits overhead.
Are you the CTO of record?+
By default, no. You stay the named CTO on legal and board documents; I act as the senior technical voice in the room. For pre-funding or due-diligence scenarios where named-CTO status matters, we can scope that into the engagement on a case-by-case basis.
What's the minimum commitment?+
Three months. Long enough to ramp, make real decisions, and see them land. Most engagements run longer; some convert to ongoing retainer; some wind down once the work has stabilised. We agree on the shape at the start, not the duration in perpetuity.
How does the engagement end?+
With a clear handoff. The point of fractional work is that it doesn't outlast its usefulness. The goal is to leave your team stronger than I found it, with the leadership and platform foundations to keep going on their own. Exit shape is part of the first conversation.
30 minutes.
No pitch.
Most engagements start with a single conversation. Here’s what we’ll cover:
- —Where you are.Your team, your platform, and what’s actually slowing you down.
- —Whether there’s a fit. I’ll tell you directly if I’m not the right person.
- —What good looks like. A rough picture of what solving this could look like for your team.