How much technology leadership does the job need?
Choose between a part-time engagement and a full-time CTO by the decisions, responsibilities, and availability your business needs.
Write down the job before choosing the arrangement.
List the decisions someone needs to own: the software roadmap, vendor choices, engineering management, hiring, security priorities, or delivery. Then ask how often those decisions arise and how close that person needs to be to the daily work.
A part-time CTO can fit a bounded leadership need.
You may have people doing the work and need a senior person to set direction, review the plan, and help resolve difficult choices. Agree on the responsibilities, meeting time, hands-on work, and availability in a proposal.
The owner still needs to know who handles the decisions outside that scope. A part-time arrangement does not imply someone is available whenever a problem happens.
A full-time CTO can fit a daily executive role.
A growing engineering organization may need a leader in the business every day: managing people, coordinating across departments, and making decisions as work changes. Recruitment, onboarding, and the authority of the role are part of that choice.
Compare the proposed engagement fee with the full cost of employing and supporting a hire. Use your actual scope and hiring market; a generic salary range or savings percentage will not settle the decision.
Make the handoff part of the plan.
If the business expects to hire later, define what the interim leader should document and which responsibilities move to the new hire. The agreement should cover access, confidentiality, and ownership of the work.
Read what Fifth Nine’s part-time CTO work covers. For a first AI project, the paid AI Audit offers a narrower place to start.