CTO Advisory · San Francisco
San Francisco's fractional CTO — senior technical leadership without the full-time hire.
Architecture decisions, engineering hires, vendor and AI calls, and a tech story your board and investors will actually back — embedded with San Francisco founders and leadership teams. Proven operating, not just advising.
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Why San Francisco teams call us
The work you can't afford to get wrong.
San Francisco is the venture and AI epicentre — CTO-level work here is dominated by raising, technical diligence and getting AI strategy right before the round.
We're raising and our tech story doesn't survive a serious investor's diligence.
We have engineers but no one senior enough to own architecture, hiring and the hard trade-offs.
Our last CTO left / we can't justify a full-time CTO yet — but the decisions can't wait.
We're being sold AI by every vendor and we have no independent voice in the room.
Our build is slipping and we can't tell if it's the team, the scope or the architecture.
What we do
What a fractional CTO actually owns.
Every engagement starts with a 30-minute call. If we can't tell you something useful in that window, we don't take it on.
Architecture & technical strategy
The decisions that are expensive to reverse: build vs buy, platform choices, data model, AI strategy and the sequencing that keeps you shippable while you scale.
Engineering hiring & team design
Writing the specs, sitting on the panel, designing the org and onboarding the senior hires — so you build the right team, not just a bigger one.
Vendor & AI evaluation
An independent voice across the table from vendors. We run the bake-offs, read the contracts for lock-in, and tell you when the answer is 'don't buy it'.
Investor & board-ready tech story
The architecture narrative, the roadmap and the risk register that hold up in diligence — and the technical due-diligence support when you raise or get acquired.
Delivery & velocity
Why the build is slipping, and the unglamorous fixes — scope discipline, process, the right seniority in the right seats — that get it back on track.
Governance & risk
Security posture, data governance and AI risk framed for your board and your auditors, not buried in an engineering wiki.
Why San Francisco
In your timezone. Onsite when it counts.
Bay Area founders call us when a raise needs a tech story and architecture that survive a sophisticated technical diligence, when AI strategy needs an owner, or when they need senior leadership to scale faster than a well-funded competitor.
We operate as well as advise, with evals, observability and cost discipline baked into the AI strategy — the calls come from someone who's shipped, not just advised.
What "good" looks like.
We measure ourselves on what your team is doing differently — not on hours billed.
A tech story and risk register that hold up when an investor or acquirer's technical advisor digs in.
Senior engineering hires made on a real spec, with us on the panel — not a costly mis-hire you unwind in six months.
An advisor with no vendor kickbacks, telling you when to buy, when to build, and when to wait.
Embedded leadership at a fraction of a full-time CTO's cost, dialled up or down as you need it.
How we engage
Three ways to start. All begin with a call.
Engagement
Technical Due Diligence
2-week diagnostic of architecture, team, delivery risk and AI readiness — for a raise, an acquisition, or your own board. Fixed scope, fixed fee.
from US$10K
Engagement
Fractional CTO
2–4 days a week, embedded. We own architecture, hiring and vendor calls and carry the technical story. Quarterly outcomes, not a retainer for its own sake.
from US$12K/mo
Engagement
Advisory retainer
A senior sounding board for your founder/CEO and lead engineers — architecture reviews, hiring calls and the hard decisions, on tap.
from US$6K/mo
FAQ
Direct answers to what San Francisco teams ask before they book.
Are you based in San Francisco?
We're an Australian-headquartered firm and work with San Francisco teams remote-first in your timezone, with onsite visits for kickoff and key milestones. We work with teams across SoMa, the Financial District and the wider Bay Area.
How fast can you start?
A 2-week Technical Due Diligence can start the Monday after the scoping call. Larger engagements typically begin 1–2 weeks out, depending on team availability.
Do you work in USD and to US compliance?
Yes — we contract and price in USD. We design for SOC 2, HIPAA where health data is in scope, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and state privacy law (CCPA/CPRA). We're an official Vanta partner for the evidence side.
How is this different from a management consultancy?
We operate, we don't just advise. We've built and run production systems and our own venture-studio products — so the architecture and hiring calls come from someone who's lived the consequences.
Will you support a raise or an acquisition?
Yes. Technical due-diligence prep, the architecture narrative, the data-room tech materials and sitting in the room for the technical session are core to the engagement.
Will our architecture survive technical diligence?
Yes — we harden scalability, security and cost, and sit in the technical session so diligence is a tick, not a flag.
AI strategy that holds up to investors?
Yes — defensible, with evals and cost controls, not a roadmap of hype.
Do you actually build, or just advise?
Both — and we never advise without being willing to build. If we tell you the answer is Apache Superset, we'll stand it up. If we say hire a senior engineer, we'll write the spec and sit on the panel.
Related
Stop benchmarking. Book a call.
Thirty minutes. No deck. We'll either tell you what to do next, or who you should be talking to instead of us.
Book a 30-min call