Who is a Fractional CTO and Why Are They on the Rise?

A technical co-founder is someone who manages the company’s tech development. They oversee everything that’s related to tech — hiring, product updates, and engineering operations.

Responsibility-wise, fractional CTOs are often no different from technical co-founders.

At Shiny, we define fractional CTOs as highly experienced technical leaders and engineering managers who can take responsibility for turning a product vision into reality.

They’ve previously launched products, be it within an early-stage startup, a midsize company, or a large corporation.

But their love for tech and the flexibility to work with multiple clients turned them into fractional CTOs.

The main aim of a fractional CTO is to work with exciting startups and develop disruptive products.

Whether it’s software, hardware, IoT, or something else, they’re excited to build new tech that has the power to bring revolutionary change.

Ever since Covid-19, startups have been conservative about spending a lot on hiring.

According to Technically, startups are more and more inclined to hire fractional CTOs nowadays because of the flexibility they offer in payments and work.

If we look at a Google Trends report, after Covid-19, the search for the term ‘fractional CTO’ has noticeably increased.

And if we look at the past 5 years’ worth of Google searches for fractional CTO and compare it with the search for the term technical co-founder.

Here’s what we get:

From the above graph, you can see how, after 2020, the search for fractional CTO has been on the rise, and the search volume for technical co-founder is steady.

Use Shiny to find your new fractional CTO as an alternative to a technical co-founder.