Fractional CTO
Chad J Buchanan Fractional CTO
Senior technical leadership, on the org chart, without a full-time hire.
As your Fractional CTO I sit at the executive level — owning architecture, technical strategy and engineering execution — while staying close enough to the codebase to actually move it. Companies hire me when the founder is the de-facto CTO and shouldn't be anymore.
What this role actually means
Fractional CTO means I take real ownership of your technology: architecture, hiring, vendor decisions, product engineering, integrations, security posture and roadmap. I work with founders, boards and existing teams to ship the right thing, reduce technical risk, and make engineering a multiplier on revenue.
What I do as your Fractional CTO
- Systems & data architecture
- Product and feature roadmap
- Integrations & 3rd-party stack
- Engineering hiring & oversight
- Code & infra reviews
- Vendor / build vs. buy decisions
- Security, scaling & reliability
- Hands-on builds when speed matters
Who it's for
- ·Founders who are the accidental CTO and need to hand it off.
- ·Companies between Seed and Series B that aren't ready for a full-time exec.
- ·Teams with a strong engineer-in-charge who needs executive cover and strategy.
- ·Operators with technical debt strangling growth.
Outcomes I drive
- Architecture that scales with revenue
- Faster shipping, fewer rewrites
- Clear technical roadmap tied to business goals
- Right-sized stack and vendor spend
- Engineering team that's actually accountable
- AI and automation built into the stack
Examples from my own ventures
- KluiqArchitected the CRM, data layer and agentic systems from the ground up.
- 1,000+ Domain NetworkDesigned and runs the infrastructure powering 50M+ monthly page views.
- DetroitBarbers.com25+ years of operating tech across booking, directory and lead systems.