"Fractional CTO" has become the title people put on their LinkedIn profile when "senior developer" doesn't sound senior enough.
I play this role for some of my clients, so I have opinions about what it actually means — and what it doesn't. The confusion isn't just semantics. If you hire the wrong thing under this label, you pay consulting rates for work that a good contractor would have done better.
The Problem with the Label
The term covers a surprisingly wide range of people and arrangements. At one end, you have experienced technical leaders — people who have actually run engineering organizations, made architectural decisions that constrained companies for years, hired and let go technical staff, and owned the consequences. At the other end, you have developers who decided their day rate felt more justifiable with a fancier title.
Both call themselves fractional CTOs. The market hasn't sorted this out yet.
