Hiring plan + interviewing
Engineering org design for the next 12 months, leveling matrix, comp benchmarks against US and EU markets, role specs. We co-interview senior engineering hires and sit on the panel for staff and principal roles.
Services
Fractional CTO Services for US & EU Series A–C Startups
Senior CTO leadership 2–4 days per month for funded founders who need engineering judgement, not another full-time hire yet. We run hiring plans, architecture reviews, vendor selection, technical due diligence, board reporting, and security posture work alongside your team. 15+ years of engineering leadership across SaaS, fintech, and AI products — hands-on, not advisory theatre. Engagements start at 4,500 EUR/month with a three-month minimum, month-to-month thereafter.
A fractional CTO is the right answer in three situations. You are pre-Series-A — there is no budget for a full-time CTO comp package yet, but you need senior engineering judgement on hiring, architecture, and vendor calls that compound for years. You are between CTOs — the previous one departed, the search will run six months, and the engineering org cannot drift in the meantime. Or you are scaling past 10–20 engineers and the founder-CTO can no longer sit in every architecture meeting, every hiring loop, every board prep. Engagements run from 2 days per month (light advisory) to 8 days per month (active execution), priced to match.
What's inside a fractional CTO engagement
Architecture review + roadmap
Quarterly architecture audit against your product roadmap, written ADRs for major calls, a risk register that the board can read, and a 90-day technical priorities list aligned with growth targets.
Vendor + build-vs-buy
LLM provider selection, observability stack, IaaS and managed-Kubernetes choices, auth (Auth0, WorkOS, Clerk), billing (Stripe, Lago, Orb). We run the eval, score the trade-offs, and own the recommendation.
Due diligence support
Technical DD for investors during fundraise — we prepare the DD pack, run the data room, and sit in the call with the fund's technical advisor. Vendor security questionnaires answered correctly the first time.
Board + investor reporting
Engineering metrics for the board deck: velocity, cycle time, reliability, security posture, hiring funnel, runway by team. Co-authored with the founder and defended in the boardroom when needed.
Security + compliance posture
GDPR readiness review, SOC 2 Type I/II prep, HIPAA gap assessment for healthtech, CCPA notice work for US consumer products. We sit between you and the auditor and write the controls.
Areas we cover
Engineering Org Design
Hiring & Leveling
Compensation Benchmarks
Architecture Review
Build vs Buy
Vendor Selection
Cloud Strategy
Security Posture
GDPR Readiness
SOC 2 Readiness
HIPAA Gap Assessment
AI & LLM Strategy
Data Platform Strategy
Observability
Incident Response
Technical Due Diligence
Board Reporting
Investor Updates
IP Strategy
OSS Strategy
How a fractional CTO engagement works
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01
Discovery
Week 1: meet the founders, review the codebase and architecture, talk to your top three engineers, then write a baseline report covering team, technology, risk, and quick wins.
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02
Baseline
Weeks 2–4: deliver the hiring plan, architecture review, and 90-day technical priorities. You and the board approve the plan before we move into operating cadence.
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03
Cadence
Weekly 1:1 with the founder, bi-weekly engineering staff meeting, monthly architecture review, async availability for hiring loops, incidents, and investor calls.
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04
Quarterly review
Board-ready engineering update, roadmap recalibration against growth targets, hiring funnel review, and a written risk register update for the next quarter.
Engagement models
Advisory
2 days per month. Weekly founder 1:1, monthly architecture review, board prep, async availability. Best for pre-seed and seed startups with a working technical founder. 4,500 EUR/month.
Active
4 days per month. Everything in Advisory plus hiring loop participation, vendor evaluations, and one quarterly deep-dive (security, architecture, or fundraise prep). 8,000 EUR/month.
Embedded
8 days per month. Operational engineering leadership: staff meetings, on-call rota for major decisions, full hiring panel, board attendance. Best between CTOs. 14,000 EUR/month.
Three-month minimum on all tiers, month-to-month thereafter with 30 days notice. NDA, DPA, and IP assignment signed before kickoff.
Selected work
Social Media · Consumer Tech
JoyJet
Production social platform — App Store + Google Play, live across the US and EU — with geo Radar, encrypted messaging and a virtual economy.
LegalTech · Mobile · CRM
Signatory Pro
Native iOS and Android e-signature clients with a Symfony + React CRM for a cross-border law firm — KYC onboarding and a defensible evidence trail for US & EU matters.
AdTech · Lead generation
ARIA
Single-page Tilda landing with Telegram-bot lead capture for an ad agency — shipped in two weeks, US & EU ready.
Why US & EU founders pick YuSMP fractional CTOs
GDPR-aligned · ISO 27001 ready · SOC 2 Type II in progress · HIPAA-capable · CCPA-acknowledged
15+ years hands-on
Every fractional CTO has shipped production systems for at least 15 years — staff or principal engineer level, then VP/CTO. They still read code and review PRs when it matters.
Senior engineers, not coaches
We do not send career coaches with a deck of frameworks. We send engineers who can debug a production outage, evaluate a Postgres schema, and call a vendor's bluff in a sales call.
Compliance-fluent
GDPR, SOC 2 Type I/II, HIPAA, CCPA, ISO 27001 — we have walked clients through every one of these, and we sit between you and the auditor when the questions get specific.
For fundraise diligence we work directly with your fund's technical advisor and prepare the data room to the standard the fund expects — not the standard a generalist consultant assumes.
Frequently asked questions
When does a startup need a fractional CTO vs a full-time CTO?
A fractional CTO fits three moments. Pre-Series-A: you have 5 to 15 engineers, a technical founder who is also doing product and sales, and no budget yet for a 250k EUR full-time CTO comp package. Between CTOs: your CTO left, search will take six months, and the engineering org cannot run rudderless. Scaling past 20 engineers: the founder-CTO still wants to write code and you need a peer who can run architecture review, hiring loops, and board reporting. Once you are 40+ engineers or post-Series-C, hire full-time and we run the transition.
How is this different from a generic technical advisor?
An advisor reads your deck for one hour a month and gives opinions. A fractional CTO is contractually inside your operating cadence: weekly 1:1 with the founder, bi-weekly engineering staff meeting, monthly architecture review, quarterly board update. We sign NDAs and DPAs, get git access, talk to your engineers, run hiring loops, and own deliverables. We co-author the engineering section of your board deck and stand behind it in the meeting.
How much time do you actually spend with our team each month?
Three engagement tiers. Advisory is 2 days per month (one full day of staff meetings + roughly four hours per week of async review, 4,500 EUR/month). Active is 4 days per month (weekly half-day on-site or video + async, 8,000 EUR/month). Embedded is 8 days per month (two days per week of operational engineering leadership, 14,000 EUR/month). All tiers include weekly founder 1:1 and a monthly written report.
Can you also help us hire our first or next CTO?
Yes, and it is one of the most common reasons clients hire us. We write the role spec, calibrate comp against US and EU benchmarks, source through our network, run technical interviews, and run reference checks. We sit on the hiring panel with the founder and the board. When the full-time CTO joins, we run a 30 to 60 day handover and step down. Roughly 40 percent of our engagements end this way and we treat it as a successful outcome, not a lost retainer.
Do you sign NDAs and DPAs for investor due diligence work?
Always. Every engagement starts with a mutual NDA, an IP assignment clause, and a DPA aligned to GDPR for any personal data we touch. For investor-side technical due diligence we sign the fund's specific NDA and conflict-check against any portfolio company before accepting. We are GDPR-aligned, SOC 2 Type II in progress, HIPAA-capable for healthtech diligence, and CCPA-acknowledged for US consumer products.
What does pricing look like and when does it scale up?
Pricing is fixed monthly: 4,500 EUR (Advisory), 8,000 EUR (Active), 14,000 EUR (Embedded). Three-month minimum, then month-to-month with 30 days notice. Pricing scales when scope expands: extra hiring loops, security audit support, fundraise diligence sprints, or M&A diligence are quoted separately at 1,800 EUR per day. We do not bill for travel inside EU, and US on-site is billed at cost with no markup.