Choosing
Five different jobs that all get described as "getting senior technical help". They own different things, and buying the wrong one is expensive: you pay for a seat when you needed an answer, or for an answer when you needed a team.
This page is for founders deciding which one to hire. It ends by ruling three of the five out of my own practice.
The five
Ownership is the thing that separates them. Everything else is scheduling.
Owns the function
Runs engineering on reduced hours: architecture calls, hiring, roadmap, the team. Fits when you need a CTO's judgment continuously but cannot yet justify the full-time hire.
Who runs engineering?Owns the seat
Holds the role full-time until a permanent hire lands, and hands over when they arrive. Fits when the CTO has left and decisions are piling up with nobody senior to make them.
Who holds the seat now?Owns nothing
Brings a senior second read on decisions you are already making. No delivery commitment, which is exactly why it is cheap to start and useless if what you needed was execution.
Am I making the right call?Owns one deliverable
Answers one defined question in writing, by a date, and closes. Fits when you need something established as fact: what the architecture will and will not survive, what an investor will find.
What is actually true?Owns the shipping
Supplies engineers and builds what is specified. Fits when the plan is settled and the constraint is hands. It is the wrong instrument for deciding whether the plan is right.
Who builds it?Where this practice sits
Togethrust is my full-time work. That constraint decides what I can and cannot be.
The free diagnostic call and the paid CTO advisory sessions sit in the advisor column: one decision at a time, no delivery commitment, no retainer and no minimum.
The 360° Tech Audit sits in the fixed-scope consultant column: one defined deliverable, 15 hours, a scored report and a 90-day roadmap, closed on delivery.
Nothing here is a fractional or interim mandate. The practice is held to 10 to 15 hours a week, one company at a time, so it cannot run your engineering function or hold your CTO seat. If that is what you need, the honest answer is to hire for it.
And nothing here is a dev shop. I do not supply engineers or build your roadmap. If hands are the constraint, the diagnostic call will tell you that rather than sell you an audit.
Ongoing advisory by invitation, for past audit clients.
That is what the diagnostic call is for. Thirty minutes, no pitch. If none of the five is me, I will point you at the one that is.
One company at a time • One 360° audit slot per quarter
Book a free diagnostic call →Or write to me at khaled.souf@gmail.com