COMMON CHALLENGE
Many organizations find themselves in a "Technical Void." They have talented developers, but without high-level strategic oversight, those developers often focus on the wrong priorities and lose sight of the business's goals.
Hiring a full-time CTO is often a six-figure commitment that many growing companies aren't ready for. However, leaving the "Technical Void" unfilled is even more expensive in the long run.
Leadership is more than managing people; it's about ensuring that the time and resources spent translate into tangible business value.
The Tandem method
We don't act as external consultants who drop a 50-page PDF and disappear. We act as Embedded Experts - joining your Slack, participating in your sprints, and taking true ownership of your technical health.
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We provide the strategic "heavy lifting" - attending board meetings, defining technical roadmaps, and making the high-stakes decisions on your tech stack that will impact your company for years to come.
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We work with your team to learn their process. By identifying bottlenecks in your deployment pipeline or communication gaps in your sprints, we help your team ship code faster and with fewer bugs.
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If your internal team is overwhelmed, we provide senior-level engineering support to lead by example. We don't just "do the work"; we raise the standard of the code being written across your organization.
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Hiring the wrong developer is a six-figure mistake. We help you build your internal team by creating hiring frameworks, technical screening processes, and vetting candidates to ensure they have both the skills and the culture fit.
DELIVERABLES
We provide the structure and seniority needed to turn an "in-house dev team" into an "engineering powerhouse."
We translate your business goals into technical roadmaps. This includes budget forecasting, vendor management, and ensuring your architecture is ready for whatever comes next.
We deploy senior developers into your most critical projects to supercharge your team. We focus on complex features, security audits, and setting the "gold standard" for your codebase.
We help implement code reviews, documentation standards, and team mentorship. Our goal is to improve your team’s co-operation and output, making them more effective every day.
BEYOND DEVELOPMENT
Strategic leadership works best when paired with a clear product vision:
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tandem expert
Our leadership services are delivered by people who have built and scaled their own technology companies.
Managing Director
When it comes to work, James is especially passionate about three things; bringing experts from multiple fields together, building novel solutions to complex problems, and making the world a better place.
After earning a Bachelor of Commerce in Management Systems from the University of Alberta, James has spent the last decade performing Business Analysis and managing Development teams.
A Fractional CTO provides the same high-level strategic guidance as a full-time CTO but on a part-time or project basis. This allows you to access hard-earned years of experience at a fraction of the cost of a full-time executive salary and equity package.
We join your communication channels (Slack, Teams), attend your stand-ups, and review your code. We are "team-first" and work to empower your existing developers, not replace them.
Engagements vary based on needs. Some clients utilize our Fractional CTO services for 6–12 months to stabilize a team, while others keep us on a long-term retainer for ongoing strategic oversight.
Yes. One of the primary goals of our engagement is to help you find and vet a permanent replacement once your organization has scaled to the point where a full-time hire makes sense.
As part of our leadership role, we help your team establish an on-call rotation and disaster recovery plan so that emergencies are handled systematically, rather than relying on one person.
