Fractional VPE vs Fractional CTO
Professionally speaking, I’m a Fractional VP of Engineering, a role often confused with Fractional CTO. Some folks will even use the two titles interchangeably. However, these are distinct roles, both in the implicit difference between a CTO and VPE, as well as how they play out in a fractional context.
VPE vs CTO
To better understand these fractional roles, let's first touch on their full-time equivalents. A great primer here is Fred Wilson’s post “VP Engineering Vs CTO”:
A CTO is ideally the strongest technologist in the organization. He or she will be an architect, a thinker, a researcher, a tester and a tinkerer. The CTO is often the technical co-founder if there is one.
A VP Engineering is ideally a great manager and a great team builder. He or she will be an excellent recruiter, a great communicator, and a great issue resolver. The VP Eng's job is to make everyone in the engineering organization successful and he or she needs to fix the issues that are getting in the way of success.
Fundamentally, a CTO is responsible for technology and a VPE is responsible for people and process. However, at startups, these lines are blurred. Most begin with a single person serving in a technical leadership role, often with the title of CTO, who must juggle both technical and people responsibilities.
This is scalable for a time as smaller teams generally have limited organizational problems. However, as an engineering team grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to juggle both technology and people management work. The common solution is to formalize the split in these responsibilities by dividing them into two separate roles, with the CTO and VPE forming the leadership team guiding the engineering org. This split is found in fractional roles as well, though with additional dynamics at play.
In a Fractional Context
In practice, most fractional CTOs look like an early-stage startup CTO. They wear both CTO and VPE hats, and, similar to startup CTOs, they’re primarily focused on technical leadership. A fractional CTO will have few or no direct reports, or they may be managing work done by external consultants. In fact, a common use case for a fractional CTO is to direct and evaluate the work of consultants on behalf of a non-technical founding team. So you can think of a Fractional CTO as a startup CTO, performing much of the work of a technical co-founder.
As a Fractional VPE, I look more like the full-time VPE hired to help a technical co-founder. I take over people management and process work so the CTO can focus on technology and building their product, while I focus on making their team successful.
Just like a full-time VPE, I can often be found amplifying and instilling messages from the founding team, addressing velocity issues, collaborating with other non-technical leaders, threading the needle of too much vs not enough process, defining the recruiting strategy, or coaching engineers.
What makes this different from a full-time VPE? Time. Clients I work with have VPE shaped problems, but for a variety of reasons, a full-time hire isn’t the right call. They may not have a budget for a full-time VPE, or if they do, would rather postpone a full-time hire for strategic reasons. Or, their problems may not necessitate 40 hours a week of work. For an engineering team of 20 or fewer, there are only so many 1:1’s and strategy meetings a VPE needs to be effective. In fact, hiring a full-time VPE can often exacerbate issues if the VPE is unable to recognize that they won’t be helping by consuming the team’s time with meetings and complex processes, solely to fill the VPE’s work week.
Final Thoughts
If you need help at the technical decision-making level and minimal to no people leadership assistance, a Fractional CTO is the right fit.
However, if you have issues with velocity, process or team execution, but a full-time engineering leader is not the right move at this time, a Fractional VP of Engineering is the way to go. If that sounds like you, I’d love to chat. Reach me at mark@launchit.ai.
