October 6, 2026
What’s a fractional CTO to do once everything is good?
What do you do as a fractional CTO once you have everything set up and working well for the client?
For example...
Let’s say you spend a year or so:
- Designing an optimal architecture for the client’s needs
- Setting up fast and reliable DevOps processes and automation
- Bringing in and training an engineering team and manager
...and now everything is humming along smoothly.
It was a lot of heavy lifting up front, but now there’s not nearly as much to do.
Should you lower your monthly fee? Do they even need you anymore? What’s your job at this point?
Answer key: No, yes, (see below)
The machine you built is full of squishy moving parts. Things can and will change. Your expertise and direction will be very valuable when they do.
But until then, how do you earn your money?
I’d recommend putting more and more canaries farther and farther up the coal mine.
In other words...
Once you’ve pulled the engineering org out of the typical firefighting mode, you can get more proactive with things like smoke detectors and sprinkler systems.
Yours,
—J