Services
Fractional engineering leadership
Three ways to engage, depending on what your team needs most.
Sightlines
Strategic & Operational Assessment
This offering provides a fixed fee 3-week assessment of your organization's product development capabilities and effectiveness. Designed for seed through Series B startups, I start with a briefing from leadership on product positioning, strategic goals and desired outcomes and focus initially on the team, their alignment and overall organizational design. I then audit processes and tools to determine suitability for your needs.
At the conclusion of the engagement you will have clarity on your organization, strategy and ability to execute. The final deliverable is a detailed report assessing strengths and weaknesses of current delivery capabilities, considerations for overall engineering strategy and actionable recommendations to deliver on your specific outcomes. This report is uniquely created for you — not adapted from a template.
Recommendations can range from making specific improvements in your CI/CD pipeline to implementing pathfinders in your product delivery process through reorganizing the team as a whole. If the assessment shows that your team is well-positioned to deliver on your outcomes, they can begin to execute on the provided recommendations on their own. Many clients move directly into a Scaffold or Build engagement when assessments indicate that there are deeper challenges to address.
Scaffold
Leadership Advisory
Scaffold is designed for founders and early stage engineering leaders facing a variety of challenges. You may wonder if your technology stack is still viable or if it is holding you back. One of your most valued people is struggling with the transition from player to player-coach. You have streamlined your organization, adopted the latest technology and enabled your people to be more autonomous yet you are mostly generating output and not outcomes that move the needle for your business. Each of these challenges represents a gap between what your team is doing and what your business needs. I can help close that gap.
This offering provides up to 20 hours per month, on a retainer basis, for access to me as an objective partner to pressure-test strategies, develop process improvements for delivery and improve your team's effectiveness. You will receive up to 3 hours per week for scheduled videoconferences in one or two-hour blocks and responses to asynchronous communication (chat or email) within one business day.
Build
Embedded Leadership
The foundations built by a startup from seed through Series B have an outsized impact on the organization's durability and longevity. Hiring a full-time VP of Engineering or CTO at this stage is expensive and usually premature. More importantly, making the wrong hire at this stage can cause irreparable damage. Still, you need help ensuring that your organizational design supports your business goals. You want to avoid needless complexity in both processes and technology. You want to deliver customer value as quickly as possible while ensuring sustainability and maintainability.
Build is designed for companies scaling from 0 to 50 team members. I embed with your team for up to 80 hours per month, on a retainer basis, with a minimum three-month commitment. I function as your VP of Engineering or CTO, working directly with your founding team and reporting to the CEO or equivalent. I work remotely, though occasional in-person sessions are available for team meetings or offsites. Engagements typically range from 3 months to one year so that when you're ready to hire a permanent engineering leader, you're handing them a team that can execute, not a mess to clean up.
Getting Started
- Schedule a 30-minute consultation to see if we're a good fit
- If it makes sense to work together, Sightlines is usually the right starting point
- At the end of the assessment we'll discuss what you need next, if anything
- If we're going to continue working together, we discuss whether Scaffold or Build is the better option for you
Schedule a 30-minute initial consultation
Your next engineering leader might not need to be a full-time hire.