leadership

CTO as a Service

Fractional CTO and tech lead from EltexSoft. Architecture, team scaling, vendor evaluation, due diligence. HeyTutor (8+ yr de facto CTO). $50-99/hr.

Talk to us

EltexSoft provides fractional CTO and tech lead as a service for startups and growth-stage companies that need senior technical leadership without a full-time C-suite hire. Our co-founder Illia has served as de facto CTO for HeyTutor for 8+ years, owning architecture, infrastructure, hiring, and technical strategy. We also provide tech-lead-level CTO functions for SoRipe and other long-term clients. $50-99/hr.

What we ship

The Work

Most Startups Don’t Need a $300K CTO. They Need CTO-Level Decisions Made Correctly.

A full-time CTO costs $200K-$400K in base salary, plus equity, plus benefits. For a Series A company with 5-15 engineers, that is the right hire. For a seed-stage startup, a bootstrapped company, or a growth-stage business that has product-market fit but no senior technical leader, it is a misallocation of capital.

What these companies actually need: someone who makes the architecture decisions correctly, sets up infrastructure that does not catch fire at 2 AM, builds a hiring process that attracts engineers who stay, evaluates vendors without conflicts of interest, and creates a technical roadmap that aligns with the business plan. They need a fractional CTO.

EltexSoft provides CTO as a service and tech lead as a service. Our co-founder Illia has been the de facto CTO of HeyTutor for over 8 years. Not an advisor. Not a consultant who visits quarterly. The person who owns the architecture, the infrastructure, the CI/CD pipelines, the hiring decisions, and the technology strategy. HeyTutor does not have a separate CTO because they do not need one.

How It Works in Practice

HeyTutor: De Facto CTO for 8+ Years

HeyTutor is an EdTech platform connecting students with tutors. Illia has been their technical leader since the early days of the product. What that looks like in practice:

Architecture ownership. Stack selection, database design, API architecture, third-party integration decisions. Every technical decision that is expensive to reverse runs through Illia before code is written.

Infrastructure from day one. CI/CD pipelines with on-demand development environments. Dev-staging-production workflow. Slack integrations for deployment notifications, monitoring alerts, and build status. Automated testing in the pipeline. This is not infrastructure that was added later. It was set up on day one because that is how Illia starts every engagement.

Team scaling. As HeyTutor grew, the engineering team grew with it. Illia manages the hiring process: defining the role, conducting technical interviews, making offers, and onboarding. The engineers are EltexSoft team members, which means the technical leader and the team work at the same company, share the same standards, and communicate daily.

Technical strategy. What to build next, what to defer, what to kill. When to use a third-party service and when to build in-house. When to refactor and when to leave working code alone. The judgement calls that a CEO cannot make alone.

SoRipe: Tech Lead as CTO

For SoRipe (the meal kit platform acquired by Hungry), our tech lead performed CTO-level functions: architecture decisions, infrastructure management, team coordination, and technical due diligence preparation ahead of the acquisition. The acquisition outcome validated the approach: the technical foundation passed buyer due diligence.

What a Fractional CTO From EltexSoft Does

Architecture and system design. Stack selection, database design, API architecture, microservices vs monolith decisions, scalability planning, build-vs-buy analysis. The decisions that shape your engineering for years.

Infrastructure and DevOps. CI/CD pipelines from day one. Cloud architecture (AWS, GCP). Monitoring and alerting. Incident response procedures. Cost optimization. On-demand dev environments. The foundation that determines whether your engineering team ships daily or monthly.

Team building. Hiring plans, technical interview processes, onboarding, code review standards, engineering culture, performance management. How to scale from 2 engineers to 20 without losing velocity or quality.

Technical due diligence. For fundraising, for acquisition, or for your own peace of mind. Codebase audit, security assessment, architecture review, scalability analysis, dependency risk mapping, and a report that investors or acquirers can read.

Vendor evaluation. Evaluating development agencies, SaaS providers, API vendors, and technology partners. When a vendor claims their product does X, a fractional CTO verifies it before you sign a contract.

Legacy rescue. Inheriting a codebase from a prior contractor who left no documentation. Stabilizing production. Establishing CI/CD where none exists. Writing the tests that should have been written from the start. The first 90 days of most fractional CTO engagements start here.

What the First 90 Days Look Like

Weeks 1-2. Codebase audit. Infrastructure review. Team assessment. Documentation of current state. Identification of critical risks (security vulnerabilities, single points of failure, missing backups, no CI/CD).

Weeks 3-6. Stabilize critical issues. Establish CI/CD if missing. Introduce monitoring and alerting. Set up dev-staging-production workflow. Document deployment procedures. Fix the things that will cause an outage if left alone.

Weeks 7-12. Technical roadmap for the next 6-12 months. Hiring plan. Architecture decisions for upcoming features. Vendor evaluation for any planned integrations. Quarterly planning with the CEO/founder.

After 90 days. Monthly retainer. Weekly architecture reviews. Sprint planning participation. Pull request reviews for critical systems. Infrastructure monitoring. Hiring support. Vendor negotiations. Quarterly roadmap updates.

What It Costs

Fractional CTO / tech lead as a service: $50-99/hr on a retained basis.

A typical engagement runs 20-40 hours per month: $4,000-$16,000/month.

Compare to:

Full-time CTO: $200K-$400K/year base salary, plus equity, plus benefits.

US-based fractional CTO: $200-$500/hr.

Management consulting firm: $300-$600/hr for a principal, with junior analysts doing the actual work.

Our model: a senior engineer who has been a production CTO for multiple companies, available at the rate of an Eastern European senior developer, with the judgement that comes from 11 years of shipping software for startups and growth-stage companies.

Who We Are

EltexSoft provides fractional CTO and tech lead as a service. 35-50 senior engineers. Headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal. Engineering team in Ukraine. Founded in 2015.

Our CTO-level engagements include HeyTutor (8+ years), SoRipe (through acquisition), and multiple other long-term clients. We also build with Laravel, React, Vue, Django, iOS, and Android.

5.0 Clutch rating across 30+ verified reviews. 200+ five-star Upwork reviews. Top Rated Plus and Expert-Vetted agency status (top 1%). Average client engagement: 3+ years.

The combination of fractional CTO plus development team from the same company is our strongest offering. The technical leader and the engineers are aligned. No translation layer. No finger-pointing. One accountability.

30-minute technical call. Bring your architecture questions, your scaling challenges, or your inherited codebase. We’ll tell you what we’d build and what we wouldn’t.

Talk to us →

FAQ

Common questions

What is a fractional CTO?
A fractional CTO is a senior technical leader who works with your company part-time or on a retained basis, providing the same strategic guidance as a full-time CTO without the $200K-$400K annual salary. They own architecture decisions, infrastructure strategy, team scaling, vendor evaluation, and technical roadmap.
How has EltexSoft served as CTO for a client?
Our co-founder Illia has been the de facto CTO of HeyTutor for over 8 years. He owns the technical architecture, infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, hiring decisions, and technology strategy. HeyTutor does not have a separate CTO. Illia fills that role as part of our retained engagement. We have a similar arrangement with SoRipe, where our tech lead performed CTO-level functions.
How is a fractional CTO different from a consultant?
A consultant gives advice and leaves. A fractional CTO is accountable for outcomes. They attend standups, review pull requests, make architecture decisions in real time, manage vendor relationships, and own the technical roadmap. The difference is skin in the game.
When should a company hire a fractional CTO?
When you have a product and engineering team but no senior technical leader. When your current tech lead is overwhelmed with both coding and strategy. When you are preparing for fundraising and need technical due diligence readiness. When you inherited a codebase from a prior contractor and need someone to assess, stabilize, and plan the path forward.
How much does a fractional CTO cost?
Our fractional CTO and tech-lead-as-a-service engagements start at $50-99/hr on a retained basis. A typical engagement is 20-40 hours per month, costing $4,000-$16,000/month. Compare to a full-time CTO at $200K-$400K/year base plus equity, or a US-based fractional CTO at $200-$500/hr.
What does the first 90 days look like?
Weeks 1-2: codebase audit, infrastructure review, team assessment, documentation of current state. Weeks 3-6: stabilize critical issues (security, uptime, deployment process), establish CI/CD if missing, introduce monitoring and alerting. Weeks 7-12: technical roadmap, hiring plan, architecture decisions for next 6-12 months.
Can you provide a fractional CTO and a development team together?
Yes. This is how most of our long-term engagements work. Illia provides CTO-level leadership for HeyTutor and our engineering team provides the developers. The technical leader and the engineers are from the same company, aligned on standards, and communicating daily. This eliminates the friction of a fractional CTO managing an outsourced team they did not hire.
What industries do your fractional CTOs cover?
EdTech (HeyTutor), FoodTech (SoRipe), HealthTech (RiseMD, WinitClinic), FinTech, eCommerce, and travel. Our CTO-level leadership comes from engineers who have built and shipped products in these verticals, not from management consultants.
How is this different from hiring a development agency?
A development agency builds what you specify. A fractional CTO tells you what to build and what not to build. They challenge requirements, simplify architecture, and prevent over-engineering. The best fractional CTO engagement saves money by stopping bad decisions before code is written.
What does the ongoing engagement look like after the first 90 days?
Monthly retainer. Weekly architecture reviews, sprint planning participation, pull request reviews for critical systems, infrastructure monitoring, hiring support, vendor negotiations, and quarterly technical roadmap updates. You get a senior technical partner, not a report.

Tell us what you're building.

One business day reply. From an engineer, not a sales rep.

Talk to us