If you're a startup trying to build out an engineering team, make solid architectural (and other technical) decisions, vet proposals from offshore engineering companies, and/or have a reliable and articulate technical partner for your pitches and sales meetings, you clearly need a strong CTO. But finding one that doesn't break your bank and chew up all your runway can be hard. In those situations, a fractional CTO--a strong technology partner who works on your behalf but to only 25% time (rather than a full-time commitment)--can be a "best of both worlds" solution.
Some of the things Ted can offer as a fractional CTO to your organization include:
- Industry insight and expertise. Ted spends a great deal of time studying the world of software development and its related activities, and can often "call" what will happen next--but don't take his word for it, check out his blog and his annual end-of-year/start-of-year predictions.
- Strategic planning. Where are you headed next? What are your business goals? What do you need from your engineering organization to make that happen? How can we structure that into objectives that are concrete and measurable, and build out a set of metrics that give us confidence we're headed in the right direction at the right speed? Strategic planning isn't just waving a flag and giving an inspirational speech; strategic planning also means being able to execute on those goals, and have the data to show how that execution is proceeding.
- Successful team building. Ted's built some strong engineering teams in the past, including teams that were built out of bootcamp graduates with less than a year's experience (that six months later released the product that was the CEO's flagship demo in the company's annual user conference). He's built out interview processes, job descriptions, onboarding processes, and more--just pair him with your HR head and stand back.
- Team optimization. Just building the team isn't enough, you have to grow them and develop them and optimize their activities, removing obstacles and impediments to their success. Ted's built programs to develop and optimize teams for engineering groups in the thousands.
Published on 11 May 2023