What does a fractional CTO do?
A fractional CTO provides senior technology leadership to companies on a part-time or engagement basis rather than as a full-time executive hire. The role spans architecture decisions, engineering team assessment, technology roadmaps, vendor evaluation, and direct advisory to owners and executive teams.
The version of the role matters, though. Most fractional CTOs are advisory: they diagnose, recommend, and check in. That works when you have a capable team that just needs direction. It fails when the team is the constraint, which is exactly the situation most companies are in when they go looking for one.
Nebari runs the hands-on version. The judgment comes with the ability to open the code, fix the live system, lead the rebuild, and manage the engineers doing the work. In the Home Depot engagement, continuity across multiple years is what allowed the work to compound. The same principle applies here: one person, accountable for outcomes over months, who is also in the codebase.
What does "fractional CTO with hands" mean?
It means the engagement doesn't stop at the diagnosis. An advisory CTO tells you the billing system is held together with duct tape and hands you a remediation plan. Then the plan sits, because the people who would execute it are the same people who couldn't fix it before.
With hands means I do the remediation. I stabilize the system that's failing, own the incidents and the monitoring, architect the replacement, and when the work needs more engineers than one, I source and manage them under my own leadership. You get a working technology function, and the plan and the execution come from the same accountable person.
Who does Nebari work with?
Established operating companies, roughly $5M to $100M in revenue, owner-led or PE-backed, in any vertical: billing operations, logistics, field services, healthcare-adjacent operations, vertical SaaS. The common thread is that real revenue already flows through software the current team can't fix or replace.
The typical triggers: a CTO or lead engineer just left and nobody else understands the system, revenue-critical automation keeps failing, the platform is aging out or end-of-life, an on-prem estate has to move, or a vendor is pitching a rebuild the owner can't evaluate.
One screen applies before any engagement: your revenue has to exist already, and it has to run through the software Nebari would be responsible for. If paying for the work depends on a raise, a grant, or your own customers catching up, we're honest about that early and part as friends.
How do engagements work?
The ladder has four rungs, and each rung earns the next.
1. Assessment and triage. The scope is fixed, typically 2 to 4 weeks and $5K to $25K depending on the size of the estate. I review the system your revenue depends on at the code level, place every finding on the path your money takes through it, and hand you a fix backlog in ship order. This is also how vendor rebuild proposals get evaluated.
2. Remediation and reliability. This is a monthly seat, typically $15K to $20K. I fix the live system, own incidents and monitoring, run the audits, and lead the technology function, including infrastructure and IT where scoped.
3. Rebuild leadership. This is a leadership seat, typically around $20K a month. I architect the replacement, own the roadmap and hiring plan, and lead delivery while the old platform keeps running.
4. Managed engineering seats. Seats run roughly $6K to $15K a month. Nebari sources, contracts, and manages the engineers under my leadership, so you get a working team without having to build and run one.
Engagements land on the assessment. Where things go from there depends on what it finds and how much of it you want handled for you.
How much does a fractional CTO cost?
For Nebari specifically, the ranges above apply: a fixed-scope assessment from $5K, monthly seats in the $15K to $20K range, and managed engineering seats from roughly $6K per seat. The market ranges wider than that in both directions, mostly because "fractional CTO" covers everything from two advisory calls a month to what amounts to an interim executive.
The comparison that matters is the alternative. A full-time CTO at this level runs $300,000 to $500,000+ in total compensation, takes 4 to 6 months to find, and still doesn't come with a bench of engineers. And the cost of the problem usually dwarfs both: a billing system that misfires, a platform that goes down during your busy season, or a seven-figure rebuild bought on a vendor's say-so gets expensive faster than any leadership seat.
A vendor is pitching us a rebuild. Can you evaluate it?
Yes, and it's a common way engagements start. When someone quotes you seven figures to replace a system you depend on, you're being asked to make a technical bet you can't independently check.
The assessment runs as due diligence on the proposal: what state the current system is actually in, whether a rebuild is even the right answer or the system can be remediated for a fraction of the price, whether the vendor's scope and timeline survive contact with your actual codebase, and what the migration risk looks like while revenue keeps flowing. You end up negotiating from knowledge instead of hope, whichever way the decision goes.
Fractional CTO vs. consulting firm, what's the difference?
Continuity, accountability, and how advice actually lands in your organization.
A consulting firm sends a team, typically a partner who sells the engagement, a manager who runs it, and junior consultants who do the work. The people who understand your business aren't the people doing the analysis, and the analysis team rotates off when the engagement ends. You get a deliverable, usually a well-formatted slide deck, and then you're on your own to implement it.
A fractional CTO is one person, one relationship. I'm the one in the architecture review, the one talking to your engineers, the one who remembers what we decided three months ago and why. And because I also do the remediation and lead the rebuild, I'm accountable for whether the plan works in production, which is a different standard than whether it sounded good in the readout.
Consulting firms have their place: transformations that need more bodies than any small practice can field, or regulatory assessments that need a big-four name on the report. For technology leadership over a revenue-critical system, the one-accountable-person model delivers more per dollar.
When does a full-time CTO make more sense?
When the technical complexity of your product needs someone with daily, full-time context, and your engineering organization is large enough that leadership, hiring, culture, and cross-team coordination are a full-time job on their own. At that point you should hire, and I'll say so.
Some companies use the fractional engagement as the bridge: stabilize the system, define what "great" looks like for the role, then hire a full-time CTO against a clearly defined need instead of a panic. That's a much better outcome than hiring a full-time executive into a fire nobody has mapped.
Where does AI fit in?
AI is how the work gets done at this pace. What you're buying is a stable system and a working technology function; a small senior team using AI well can remediate and rebuild at a speed that used to take a department, and that shows up in your timeline and your bill.
Where AI belongs in your product or your operations is a question the assessment answers like any other: mapped against your actual processes, your data, and your compliance obligations. The KeyBank engagement, bringing AI into the development lifecycle inside a regulated financial services environment, is what the responsible version looks like. If a use case doesn't earn its place on your revenue path, I'll tell you that too.
What are the signs a company needs this?
The patterns repeat. The person who understood the system, a CTO, a lead engineer, sometimes the one developer who built everything, has left or is about to. Revenue-critical automation fails and the failures are getting closer together. The platform is end-of-life and the vendor's answer is a forklift upgrade. Finance can't tell what the technology spend is buying. An audit or compliance deadline is approaching and nobody can answer the technical questions. Or a rebuild quote landed on your desk and you have no way to know if it's real.
Any one of those is a reason to talk. Two or more usually means the 18-month version of the problem is already forming, and the earlier the assessment happens, the cheaper the fix tends to be.