ยท 5 min read
Hiring an interim CTO: what to check before you sign.
The market is unregulated, the title is self-awarded, and the wrong pick costs a quarter. This is what I would tell a founder or owner about to sign with a competitor.
What does an interim CTO cost?
Part-time, 2 to 3 days a week, costs EUR 9 000 to EUR 20 000 a month. Full-time costs EUR 20 000 to EUR 35 000 a month. Day rates sit between EUR 1 000 and EUR 1 600, invoiced monthly, without equity and without a success fee. The full bands are in what a fractional CTO costs; the difference between the models in fractional, interim, or part-time.
Where do you find one?
Three channels work. The network of your investors or your board, which delivers the references along with the name. Other founders and your accountant, who know the SME profiles. And a handful of specialised interim-management firms, which deliver fast but put a 20 to 30 percent margin on the rate. Generic freelance marketplaces rarely surface someone who has personally led a restructuring or a turnaround; the people who can, are not on them.
The five questions before you sign
- What has this person led, personally? Not advised, led. Ask for one situation that resembles yours and what went wrong in it. Someone who never saw anything go wrong was not there.
- What does the end look like? A good interim names the end state before you ask: a permanent leader in the seat, or an org that no longer needs the extra days. No end, no engagement.
- Can I call references today? Same day, people you pick from a list. Under NDA is normal; delay is not.
- How many days, and why that number? Anyone proposing full-time by default for a team of 20 is selling days, not outcomes. Below 40 people in and around software, there is rarely 5 days of CTO work in a week.
- Who carries this after you? The answer should be a name or a profile, not "we'll see". The handover is the product; everything before it is run-up.
The red flags
Asking for equity on top of the rate. An engagement without an end date or a quarterly review point. Promises to rewrite the product; an interim CTO who wants to build is an expensive senior developer. And any proposal that starts with growing the team before a diagnosis exists.
Start smaller than you think
The least-regret route is a bounded diagnosis before you commit to anyone for months: three weeks, a fixed price, a written report, and then you decide with a document in hand instead of an impression after two meetings. That is what mine looks like; even if you sign elsewhere, the shape is worth copying.
Written from the side that usually drafts the contracts. Read it as the other party's checklist.