From 8 to 30 engineers with a Fractional CTO

Team structure, hiring funnel and delivery process built up over 18 months, with a clean handover to the first full-time CTO.

After its Series A, a software scale-up needed to grow engineering from 8 to 30 people in 18 months. The technical co-founder was simultaneously buried in architecture decisions, interviews and investor meetings, and had become the bottleneck for everything.

Starting point: One team that did everything together, without structures that carry past ten engineers. Hiring ran on the side, delivery was hard to plan, and the board wanted a credible technology story.

Approach: A Fractional CTO at two days per week in a fixed cadence: three product teams plus platform ownership, a hiring funnel with structured interviews, a delivery process with clear checkpoints, and architecture and make-or-buy decisions taken together with the founding team. The role was designed for handover from day one.

Outcome: 30 engineers after 18 months, plannable delivery, a founder who builds product again, and a clean handover to the first full-time CTO, including documented decisions and working processes.

• Industry: software scale-up
• Duration: 18 months, 2 days per week
• Services: Fractional CTO, Engineering Leadership & Scaling Advisory