Fractional AI CTO
Fractional AI CTO services for teams shipping AI agents, RAG and MCP.
I lead the AI side of your technology, typically one to three days a week. I set the architecture, review what your developers build, decide how it’s tested and secured, and stay accountable for whether it works in production.
It suits companies of roughly 10 to 300 people who are shipping AI features without a senior AI technical lead. Most engagements start after a review or a discovery sprint, once it’s clear the work needs ongoing direction rather than a one-off answer.
Or describe your project in the chat, or email nic.chin@nicchin.com
Who hires a fractional AI CTO
- Founders and CEOs whose product now depends on AI, with no one on the team who has taken an AI system to production before.
- CTOs and engineering leads whose team is building agents or RAG, who want a senior second pair of eyes on the architecture without a full-time hire.
- Companies preparing to sell to enterprise customers, or to pass a security review, whose AI features need to stand up to scrutiny.
If you’re still deciding what the role involves, I’ve written up what a fractional AI CTO does, and the fractional CTO guide collects the rest. This page is about engaging me for it.
The problems it solves
- A pilot that won’t become a product. The demo works; reliability, cost and edge cases don’t.
- Agents with too much access. Tools and MCP servers that can read or change customer data, without scoped permissions, audit trails or limits.
- No way to tell if it’s getting better. Changes ship on gut feel because there is no evaluation set.
- A team moving fast in the wrong direction. Code written with AI tools that nobody senior has reviewed for architecture, security or tenant isolation.
- An enterprise deal waiting on answers about security, data handling and compliance that nobody on the team can give with confidence.
How the engagement works
- First month: understand and stabilise. I review the architecture, the code paths that touch AI, and the data and permission model. You get a written risk list in priority order and an evaluation baseline, and we agree a 90-day plan.
- Every week: lead and review. I join your planning, make or sign off the architecture decisions, review pull requests on the AI code paths, and work alongside your developers on the hardest parts.
- Between days: stay reachable. Blocking questions get an answer asynchronously, so your team isn’t stuck waiting for my next day.
- Every month: report. What changed, what it measured, and what comes next, so you can see the value and decide whether to continue.
What I personally own: the AI architecture, its security boundaries (including what agents and MCP servers are allowed to do), the evaluation approach, and the technical calls you’d otherwise have to make without the experience. What stays yours: hiring, product priorities and the final say.
Ongoing leadership or a defined project?
| Aspect | Fractional AI CTO | A defined project |
|---|---|---|
| Best when | AI is central to your roadmap and you need ongoing direction and accountability | You have one question to answer or one thing to build |
| Shape | Typically one to three days a week, for a fixed monthly fee | Fixed scope, fixed price, agreed deliverables |
| Price | Scoped per engagement, fixed after the first call | AI-built app review from $1,300 / £1,000 Security and architecture review from £3,500 (1-2 weeks) Discovery sprint from £3,000 (2 weeks) Builds quoted after discovery |
Not sure which you need? Many engagements start with a review or the discovery sprint and become fractional once the roadmap is clear.
How the fee is set
I don’t publish a monthly price for this, because no two engagements carry the same load. Each one is scoped, and three things set the fee:
- Time: how many days a month you need, usually one or two a week.
- Hands-on versus advisory: leading and reviewing, or also building the hardest parts myself.
- How much risk sits in the work: regulated data, customer-facing agents and multi-tenant systems need more senior attention than an internal assistant.
After the first call you get a fixed monthly fee in writing, not an hourly meter. Building beyond the agreed days is quoted separately, as a project. The alternative is a full-time senior hire plus months of recruitment; a fractional lead costs less because you buy the days you use. Fractional or full-time CTO walks through when each makes sense.
Is this a fit?
A good fit if
- AI is in your product, or on your roadmap for the next 12 months
- you have at least one developer, in-house or contracted, building it
- you want someone accountable for the outcome, not a report
- you can give it more than a month - the first is mostly spent understanding and stabilising
Probably not a fit if
- you need a developer to take tasks by the hour - a contractor will cost you less
- you want an AI strategy deck with no one to implement it
- you haven’t decided whether AI is worth doing - start with the discovery sprint
- you need one check on one system - the security and architecture review or the AI-built app review is the right size
Experience behind it
- Fractional CTO and security architect, an AI platform for pharmaceutical manufacturers. Seven weeks from prototype to approval for enterprise pilots. 26 security checks found 2 critical, 4 high and 3 medium issues, and the critical and high ones were fixed - among them a document endpoint that let one customer read another’s documents, and access tokens cut from 7 days to 8 hours. 15+ guardrail tests for prompt injection, jailbreaks, personal data and secrets; an append-only audit trail kept for 365 days; six container deployments hardened; 24 of 24 acceptance criteria passed. The full case study has the detail, and the AI security and architecture review is the same work sold on its own.
- Fractional CTO, multi-tenant IoT and billing platform for the German property market. Led the architecture and the engineering team: a 31-table PostgreSQL schema with row-level security across admin, agency and tenant portals, plus integration with the German energy-industry data standard across five measurement-service platforms.
- 13 production AI systems designed and shipped, including SureCiteAI (live, open source) and SystemAudit (live, with an MCP connector listed in Claude’s connectors directory - what running it taught me).
- Founder of Bitto Tech (2018). SculptAI, a multi-agent AI project, raised a $350K seed. Verified by Upwork as Top Rated Plus.
The client is anonymised in the pharma example; the figures are from the engagement record. The rest of the evidence is on the proof page.
“Nic ramped up on a complex project in no time, took the helm of our developer team, and ensured top-tier quality at every step through clear priorities, solid architecture, and thorough code reviews.”
Questions before you hire a fractional AI CTO
How is a fractional AI CTO different from hiring a contractor?
A contractor delivers the tasks you define. A fractional AI CTO decides what should be built and how, reviews the work your developers do, and is accountable for whether it holds up in production. If you already know exactly what needs building and only need hands to build it, a contractor will cost you less.
Do you write code?
Yes. Where it matters most - architecture spikes, security fixes, evaluation harnesses - I build it myself, and I review the rest. How much of each you want is one of the things that sets the fee.
How is the monthly fee set?
It is scoped per engagement, not published as a rate. Three things set it: how many days a month you need, whether the work is advisory or hands-on, and how much risk sits in the system - regulated data, customer-facing agents and multi-tenant platforms need more senior attention than an internal assistant. After the first call you get a fixed monthly fee in writing, not an hourly meter. Building beyond the agreed days is quoted separately, as a project.
Can we start with something smaller?
Yes, and many engagements do. The fixed-scope options are the AI-built app review from $1,300 / £1,000, the AI security and architecture review from £3,500 over 1-2 weeks, and the discovery sprint from £3,000 over 2 weeks. Each ends with a written view of where you are, and fractional leadership follows when the roadmap is clear.
When should we hire a full-time CTO instead?
When AI leadership needs someone every day: a large engineering team to manage, hiring to run continuously, and decisions that cannot wait for the next working day. Until then, a fractional lead gives you senior judgement for the days you use, and part of the job is preparing the ground for the full-time hire when it comes.
Do you work remotely or on site?
Remotely by default, across the UK, US and Europe. On-site sessions are available in the UK, and elsewhere in Europe by arrangement - useful for the first architecture walkthrough with your engineers.
Tell me what you’re building and where it’s stuck.
A 45-minute call. You’ll leave with my view of the biggest risk in your AI setup, and whether fractional leadership, a defined project or nothing at all is the right next step.
Or describe your project in the chat, or email nic.chin@nicchin.com
Last updated