Senior technical leadership, a few hours a week.
A founder with a product and no technical co-founder. A company whose software is built by an agency nobody in-house can evaluate. A team that has outgrown its first developer. Each one needs a CTO's judgment long before it can justify a CTO's salary.
Rune offers that judgment on a part-time basis, remote, to companies anywhere in the United States. The person in the seat is a senior engineer who spent a decade shipping software at companies like Zoom, mentored engineers there, teaches software development at Butte College, and runs a live SaaS product of his own. He still writes code, so the advice comes from someone who has to live with it.
- Remote, anywhere in the US
- Hours a week, not a full-time hire
- Hands-on, still writes code
Fractional CTO
A fixed monthly retainer sized to the hours you need, with a written plan and status every month.
Roadmap and architecture
A technical plan that matches the business plan: what to build, in what order, on what stack, and what it will cost.
Vendor and code review
An independent read on the agency, contractor, or codebase you already have: what is sound, what is risky, and what to do about it, in plain language.
Hiring and mentoring
Job descriptions, technical interviews, and a senior engineer your first hires can learn from, so you build a team instead of renting one forever.
Production and security
Hosting, deployments, backups, monitoring, and the basics of keeping customer data safe, set up or reviewed.
Budgets you can defend
Straight answers on build versus buy, cloud bills, and whether that quote is reasonable, from someone with no stake in the answer.
Hands-on when it helps
Not only slides. When a prototype, a hard bug, or a migration needs a senior pair of hands, the same engineer does the work.
Projects where we did this
Live builds, with the story of how each one was made.
Homeschool.fit
A full SaaS platform for homeschool families: curriculum planning, scheduling, progress tracking, and community. On the web and in both app stores.
SP3-SiteHazards
A seismic hazard platform for Haselton Baker Risk Group: address in, engineered PDF report out. The complete system - data model, API, auth, CLI, PostGIS - estimated at 250 hours and delivered on time.
Yeti Launch
An Electron desktop app for ZURB that turned setting up a Foundation project into one click - no terminal, no toolchain wrangling.
Questions we get about this
What does a fractional CTO engagement look like?
A standing weekly block, usually a few hours a week or a few days a month, with a monthly plan and a written status. Remote by default, with on-site time for companies in Northern California when it helps.
How is this different from hiring an agency?
An agency sells you a build. A fractional CTO works for you across every build and vendor: setting direction, reviewing what others deliver, and telling you when not to spend. Rune does both and keeps them separate. Advice is not a sales pitch for our own development work.
Do you work with companies outside California?
Yes. Engagements run remote over video, shared documents, and your own tools, with clients anywhere in the United States.
Can you take over from a departing CTO or lead developer?
Yes. A handover review of the code, infrastructure, and accounts comes first, then a plan for what to keep, fix, or replace, and a hiring plan if a full-time lead is the right end state.
What does it cost?
A fixed monthly retainer sized to the hours agreed, quoted after a free intro call. No hourly surprises.
Other things we can take off your plate
Want a straight answer on this?
Tell us what you are after. You will hear back from the person who does the work, with a fixed quote and an honest read on whether it is worth doing.
Replies within one business day.