Fractional CTO · AI & Production Specialist
Most fractional CTOs advise. I build. I've shipped LLM features to production and scaled a HIPAA healthcare platform 100x under real pressure—so when you're adding AI, hardening a product, or hiring your first engineers, you get hands-on technical leadership that's done it before, not a consultant who writes reports.
Adding AI to your product is where most teams burn months and budget on the wrong thing. A fractional CTO who has actually shipped LLM features in production is the difference between AI that drives revenue and a demo that never ships.
Retrieval-augmented generation, agentic workflows, vision, and fine-tuned models running in production—not slideware. I've built the evaluation harnesses, prompt pipelines, and guardrails that keep AI features correct and on-budget once real users hit them.
LLM costs and latency wreck unit economics when nobody owns them. I architect provider selection, caching, model routing, and fallback so your AI features stay fast, predictable, and affordable as you scale.
Half of "we should add AI" ideas don't survive contact with production. I'll tell you which features create durable leverage, which add cost without value, and what to build first—so you invest where it actually moves the business.
Deterministic guardrails, evaluation, and data-handling discipline—drawn from shipping compliant systems in healthcare. Especially relevant if you operate in a regulated industry or your AI touches sensitive data.
Proof, not promises: ChemWhiz is a live AI tutoring product with a 100% deterministic grading engine and an LLM pedagogy layer, built and shipped solo. The same AI-assisted methodology powers CodeCrank, where I write about shipping AI-accelerated software.
Explore dedicated AI & LLM consulting →Fractional CTO engagement works best for specific stages and team profiles.
Hands-on technical leadership across the areas that matter most at your stage.
Choose the right infrastructure, framework, and data model before you build—so you're not rebuilding in 12 months. Honest trade-off analysis without vendor bias.
Translate business goals into a sequenced technical roadmap. Know what to build first, what to defer, and what to never build. Quarterly planning with your leadership team.
Define the right roles, write honest job descriptions, and interview candidates with technical depth. Stop hiring the wrong engineers at the wrong time.
Implement a delivery process that actually works for your team size—not cargo-culted enterprise Agile. Consistent shipping without chaos or ceremony.
Evaluating an acquisition, partnership, or vendor? Get an independent technical assessment of code quality, architecture risk, and team capability before you commit.
Identify where AI actually creates leverage in your product—and where it adds cost without value. Architecture, provider selection, and production reliability planning.
If you're weighing your options for technical leadership, here's the honest trade-off.
| Fractional CTO (DCTSoft) |
Full-Time CTO | Dev Shop / Agency | Consultant | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Seed–Series B teams needing senior leadership part-time | Funded companies ready for a full-time exec hire | Outsourcing build when you have a clear spec | A one-off report or second opinion |
| Owns delivery outcomes | Yes — embedded in your team | Yes | Their scope only, not your business | No — advice only |
| Writes & reviews real code | Yes | Yes | Yes (their stack, their way) | Rarely |
| Typical cost | Hours actually worked; no equity, no payroll | $250K–$400K+ comp plus equity | High monthly retainers for a team | Project or day rate |
| Commitment | Flexible, no long-term lock-in | Permanent hire | Contract term | Engagement length |
Flexible engagement structures that fit where you are right now.
4–8 hrs/month
Strategic guidance, architecture review, and leadership team access. Best for founders who have a functioning engineering team but need a trusted technical sounding board.
10–20 hrs/week
Active technical leadership integrated into your team. Roadmap ownership, hiring involvement, delivery oversight, and regular leadership check-ins.
Defined scope & timeline
Scoped engagements for specific needs: technical due diligence, architecture design, team audit, or a first engineering process setup. Clear deliverables, fixed timeline.
Not a consultancy. Not a staffing firm. A senior engineer who builds things and leads teams.
Full-stack development, system architecture, and AI integration across multiple industries. I've shipped the kind of software you're trying to build.
I review actual code, attend actual standups, and make actual decisions. If your team is stuck, I help them get unstuck—not write a memo about it.
Enterprise leadership experience scaling teams and shipping compliant systems under production pressure. Current live products: ChemWhiz (100/100/100/100 PageSpeed, growing search traction), PickAFav (production PWA), CodeCrank (AI-accelerated SaaS delivery).
AI-assisted development methodology means architectural decisions and technical planning happen in hours, not weeks. You're not paying for slow thinking.
Founder & Principal Engineer, DCTSoft LLC
I've spent 15+ years building software from scratch—not managing teams who build software. That means when I evaluate your architecture, I'm reading it like someone who has written similar systems before.
My approach combines deep technical execution with the strategic perspective that comes from founding and running a software company. I know what it costs to rebuild something you built wrong the first time.
Before DCTSoft, I served as VP of Engineering at a healthcare startup during COVID—scaling the platform 100x, leading a 12+ person team, and shipping HIPAA-compliant systems to Fortune 500 clients under real production pressure. That regulated-industry background is why founders in healthcare, fintech, and other high-stakes domains bring me in. More about my work and writing is at danieltofan.ai.
Straight answers to the questions founders ask before hiring a fractional CTO.
A fractional CTO provides senior technical leadership on a part-time or project basis: architecture decisions, AI and LLM strategy, engineering team hiring, product roadmap planning, delivery process, and technical due diligence — without the $250K–$400K+ cost of a full-time executive.
A fraction of a full-time CTO's total compensation. DCTSoft bills on a time-and-materials basis for hours actually worked, across three engagement sizes — advisory (4–8 hrs/month), part-time CTO (10–20 hrs/week), or fixed-scope projects. You pay for senior leadership only when you need it: no equity, no payroll, no long-term lock-in.
A consultant writes reports and recommendations. A development firm bills you to write code against whatever spec you hand them. A fractional CTO sits on your side of the table — reviewing actual code, attending standups, making architecture decisions, interviewing candidates, and owning delivery outcomes. It's embedded, hands-on leadership, not hands-off advice or staff augmentation.
Yes — it's a core specialty. Most fractional CTOs can advise on AI in theory; DCTSoft has shipped LLM-powered features to production, including RAG pipelines, agentic systems, vision, and fine-tuned models. You get honest guidance on where AI creates leverage versus where it adds cost and unreliability, plus the architecture, provider selection, evaluation, and cost-control work to ship it for real.
Usually seed through Series B, when you need technical leadership but can't justify a full-time CTO salary. Common triggers: a non-technical founder making architecture decisions, slow or inconsistent shipping, hiring engineers for the first time, adding AI to the product, or preparing for a fundraise where the technical story has to hold up to diligence.
DCTSoft is based in Lexington, Kentucky and serves founders in Lexington, Louisville, and across the United States remotely. Engagements are async-friendly and run effectively with distributed teams in any time zone.
The first conversation is free. I'll cover where you are, what's blocking you, and whether a fractional CTO engagement makes sense for your stage.
No pitch deck. No sales process. Just a direct technical conversation.