Fractional CTO for UK startups. Architecture on Monday, PR review on Friday.
Senior technical leadership without the £180K salary. Mohit reads every brief, chairs your architecture calls, and reviews every PR that touches the spine — 8 hours a week, £5-8K/month, 30-day walk-away.
What is fractional CTO?
A fractional CTO is a senior engineering leader who runs your technical strategy part-time. For UK seed and Series-A startups, it means an architecture-first voice on your weekly leadership call, a code review on every meaningful PR, and a written 90-day plan you can hand to your first full-time hire when the team scales. Empyreal Infotech provides this as a fixed £5-8K/month advisory retainer, delivered by Mohit Ramani directly. No agency layer, no juniors, no 6-month contract lock-in.
What you get, every engagement.
Architecture review
Every meaningful decision goes through an ADR before code moves. You inherit a documented spine, not tribal knowledge locked in one engineer's head.
Hiring + interviewing
Job specs written for you. Technical interviews run alongside your team. Founding engineer hires calibrated against 200+ builds we've shipped.
Fundraise support
Technical due diligence pack ready when your VC asks. Architecture diagram, ADRs, security posture, runbook — the artefacts investors expect.
PR review + code health
Mohit reviews every PR that touches the architectural spine. Weekly written code-health report to the founder, monthly to the board.
The fractional CTO engagement, week by week.
- 01
15 questions on the state of your product, team, and roadmap. If we're not the right fractional CTO for you, we'll say so and refer.
Discovery call. 15 questions on the state of your product, team, and roadmap. If we're not the right fractional CTO for you, we'll say so and refer.
- 02
Diagram of the current architecture, six ADRs on the most consequential decisions, a 90-day plan, and the risks that show up at Series A diligence.
Audit week. Diagram of the current architecture, six ADRs on the most consequential decisions, a 90-day plan, and the risks that show up at Series A diligence.
- 03
Weekly leadership call, PR review on every commit that touches the spine, monthly board-ready report. Adjust hours quarterly.
Retainer starts. Weekly leadership call, PR review on every commit that touches the spine, monthly board-ready report. Adjust hours quarterly.
- 04
We help you interview the full-time CTO, transfer the ADR library, and step down. No lock-in, no exit fee.
Handover to full-time. We help you interview the full-time CTO, transfer the ADR library, and step down. No lock-in, no exit fee.
Questions we get about fractional CTO, with real answers.
A technical advisor gives you 60 minutes a month of pattern-matching against their own past experience. A fractional CTO runs your architecture: writes ADRs, chairs technical hiring, reviews PRs, sits on your leadership call. Empyreal's fractional CTO service is delivered by Mohit Ramani personally at 8 hours a week — real ownership, not office hours.
A fractional CTO in London runs £5-8K/month for 8 hours a week of senior attention (~£125-200/hr). Full-time CTO base salary in London is £150-220K plus equity, plus recruiting fees. Fractional is the right fit for pre-seed → Series A when architecture is decided but the runway isn't there for full-time senior leadership.
Median tenure across our 2025 retainers is 14 months. Startups typically start at pre-seed with the £8K audit and end when they close Series A + hire a full-time CTO. 30-day walk-away both ways at every stage. No annual contract, no exit fee.
No. Fractional CTO retainers are cash-only, £5-8K/month, invoiced monthly, net-14. We don't accept equity because it aligns us with an exit event rather than with your product decisions. Cash discipline keeps the advice honest.
Yes — job specs written to your architecture, screening the CV pile, running the first technical interview, calibrating offer bands against London market rates. Included in the retainer. No separate recruiting fee.
We help you interview the full-time hire, write the handover doc, and transfer the ADR library. The point of a fractional CTO is to be replaceable when the time comes. Two 2025 retainers ended exactly this way — both by our client's request, both with our written recommendation of the incoming full-time CTO.
Send a 5-line brief. That's it.
Tell us your stage, team size, and the one architecture decision you're stuck on. Mohit replies inside 24 hours.