Fractional CTO

Technology decisions in cannabis are high-stakes. The wrong POS, the brittle integration, or the insecure data flow can cost you a license, a deal, or months of runway. A fractional CTO gives you senior technical judgment on demand — architecture review, vendor evaluation, hiring support, and roadmap planning — without the six-figure salary and equity package.

We have served as interim technical leaders for operators preparing to scale from three locations to fifteen, for brands raising their first institutional round, and for multi-state operators evaluating platform consolidation. In every case, the value is the same: an experienced engineer in the room when decisions are made, not after they have already been committed to.

Who this is for

Fractional CTO services are designed for operators who need senior technical judgment but do not yet need (or cannot afford) a full-time executive. Common scenarios include preparing for a capital raise, evaluating a major platform migration, building an internal engineering team for the first time, or recovering from a failed technical project.

What you get

Fractional CTO engagements are tailored to your stage and needs. Here are the services we most commonly provide.

• Technology roadmap and prioritization
• Architecture review and system design
• Vendor and platform evaluation
• Engineering hiring support and interview loops
• Security and compliance posture review
• Technical due diligence for acquisitions or investments

Engagement model

We typically engage one to three days per week, with Slack access for urgent questions. We attend leadership meetings, review pull requests, interview engineering candidates, and produce written roadmaps and architecture documents. As your team grows and your needs change, we adjust our engagement up or down. Every engagement starts with a three-month minimum and renews based on measurable outcomes.

A typical week includes a standing leadership check-in, async code and architecture review, and one or two deep-dive sessions on specific decisions — platform migration, vendor selection, or hiring strategy. We document everything in shared notion pages or confluence spaces so your team retains the knowledge even if the engagement ends. We also maintain a running risk register that tracks technical debt, security concerns, and compliance gaps.

Engagement length varies with your stage and needs. We have supported operators through seed-round technical due diligence, Series A platform consolidations, and post-acquisition system integrations. Our work includes vendor renegotiations that have cut software spend significantly, architecture reviews that prevented costly rebuilds, and hiring processes that placed engineers who are still with our clients years later. Every recommendation is backed by documented reasoning and risk analysis.

Pricing posture

Monthly retainer based on days per week. Typical engagements start at two days per week. We do not take equity and we do not require long-term contracts.

Related services

Fractional CTO engagements often surface the need for custom development or data infrastructure that your current team cannot resource. We can transition smoothly from advisory to delivery when the time is right.