INDEPENDENT FRACTIONAL CTO
Senior technology leadership
without a full-time CTO hire.
Igor Anicic
Founder, Soultech
- 13+ years in technology
- Engineering and product leadership
- Belgrade, working internationally
AVAILABLE FOR SELECT ENGAGEMENTS
I help founders and leadership teams take control of technology, engineering and product delivery — especially when the business has outgrown its current technical setup.
You may not need a full-time CTO yet.
But you already need CTO-level decisions.
- 13+
Years in technology leadership
- 40+
Engineers
Leadership experience
- 500+
Employee organisation
helped scale
- Hundreds of thousands
Customers using products
I helped build
When to engage
You may not need a full-time CTO yet.
But you already need CTO-level decisions.
These are the moments when founders usually reach out — when technology has become critical to the business, but ownership, visibility or direction are no longer clear.
Delivery has slowed
Product development is slowing down, deadlines keep moving or important work is not reaching customers — but no one has a complete view of why.
No confident technical read
Leadership cannot confidently assess the engineering team, architecture, vendors or delivery plan.
Priorities are diverging
Business, product and engineering priorities are moving in different directions.
Processes no longer fit
The company has outgrown the engineering structure and working practices that previously served it.
Single points of failure
Too much knowledge, authority or operational dependency sits with one developer, agency, vendor or system.
Team structure needs ownership
The business needs to hire, restructure or establish clearer accountability across the engineering team.
High-stakes technical decisions
A platform, architecture, hiring, vendor or investment decision carries meaningful commercial risk.
Direction, not another layer
The existing team needs experienced direction and support — not unnecessary management overhead.
Areas of ownership
What experienced technology leadership covers
Technology leadership is the main engagement. Under it, I take ownership across four connected areas — not as separate service lines, but as the work required to give the business clear technical leadership.
- 01
Technology direction
- Technical strategy
- Architecture
- Build-versus-buy decisions
- Technical investments
- Risk identification
- Platform and infrastructure direction
- 02
Engineering leadership
- Team structure
- Accountability
- Hiring
- Assessment of internal teams and vendors
- Support for tech leads and engineering managers
- Delivery processes
- Engineering quality
- 03
Product delivery
- Connecting company priorities with delivery
- Roadmap realism
- MVP and scope decisions
- Removing execution blockers
- Increasing delivery visibility
- Ensuring critical initiatives move forward
- 04
Executive support
- Clear technology communication for founders
- Leadership decision support
- Investor and partner communication
- Technical due diligence preparation
- Difficult decisions without an internal CTO owner
How engagements work
Practical. Execution-oriented. Clear from the start.
The process is designed to create clarity quickly, then keep leadership informed while the important work moves forward.
- 01
Understand
Review the product, technology, engineering team, delivery process and current business priorities.
- 02
Prioritise
Identify the most important risks, decisions, opportunities and immediate actions.
- 03
Lead
Work with founders, product leaders, engineering teams and partners to execute the plan.
- 04
Create visibility
Give leadership a clearer view of progress, risks, team performance and decisions requiring attention.
Business outcomes
What changes when ownership is clear
The goal is not a stack of documents. It is better decisions, clearer delivery, stronger ownership and lower business risk.
- Clearer decisions
- Leadership understands what must be done, why it matters and what the trade-offs are.
- Greater delivery confidence
- The company has a realistic plan and better visibility into whether important work is moving forward.
- Stronger engineering ownership
- Roles, responsibilities and expectations become clearer across the team.
- Lower technical and operational risk
- Important problems are identified before they become expensive business problems.
- Better alignment
- Business, product and technology decisions support the same goals.
Experience
Experience built across engineering, product and company growth.
Over the past 13+ years, I have worked as a software engineer, agency founder, tech lead and engineering manager inside startups and fast-growing international product organisations.
That experience allows me to work across technical strategy, engineering leadership, product delivery and hands-on execution when the situation requires it.
Experience as
- Software engineer
- Agency founder
- Tech lead
- Engineering manager
- Product-minded technology leader
- 01
13+ years across software engineering, product development and engineering leadership.
- 02
Experience helping grow a healthtech organisation from an early product team into an international company with more than 500 employees.
- 03
Engineering leadership experience within an organisation of more than 40 engineers.
- 04
Products used by hundreds of thousands of customers across the UK and Brazil.
Selected experience
Contexts where this kind of leadership matters
Anonymised examples of situations and responsibilities. Full case studies can be discussed in conversation where appropriate.
- 01
Healthtech · Scale
Scaling a product and engineering organisation
Supporting growth from an early product team into a larger international organisation — structure, delivery and technical direction as complexity increased.
- 02
International · Delivery
Leading product and engineering across markets
Connecting product priorities with engineering execution across international markets, with clearer ownership and more realistic plans.
- 03
AI · Platform
Building an AI-enabled customer story platform
Senior ownership around product direction, technical choices and delivery when AI capabilities needed to serve a real business use case.
- 04
Early-stage · Clarity
Helping early-stage companies define and deliver
Working with founders to define what to build, what to postpone and how to keep delivery honest when resources are limited.
- 05
Alignment · Leadership
Connecting product, business and engineering
Creating shared language and decision-making between founders, product and engineering when priorities had started to diverge.
About
Technology leader.
Product thinker.
Builder when needed.
I started my career as a software engineer and founded a software development company before moving into technical and engineering leadership roles within fast-growing international product businesses.
Over the past 13+ years, I have led engineering teams, helped build products used by hundreds of thousands of customers and supported a healthtech organisation as it grew from an early-stage product team into an international company with more than 500 employees.
That background allows me to operate across both strategy and execution. I can help leadership understand what must change, work directly with engineering and product teams to make it happen and step into the technical detail when the situation requires it.
I am most useful when technology has become important to the business, but ownership, direction, delivery or confidence are no longer clear.
Best fit
Where I can create the most value
The strongest engagements are with product companies where technology has become business-critical, but experienced technical ownership is missing, stretched or needed temporarily.
A strong fit
- Founder-led product company
- Around 10–100 employees
- Growing engineering team
- Technology is central to the business
- Delivery or technical direction has become unclear
- Not yet ready for a permanent CTO
Probably not the right fit
- Looking only for software developers
- Need a coding contractor
- Want to outsource all technology ownership
- Already have strong CTO-level leadership
- Need a permanent full-time executive
Engagement models
Three ways to work together
Fractional CTO is the primary model. Advisory and critical-initiative work are available when the situation is more focused.
Fractional CTO
PrimaryOngoing senior technology leadership for an agreed number of days each month.
Direction, engineering leadership, delivery visibility and executive support as a sustained partnership.
Advisory
FocusedSupport around a specific strategic decision, assessment or difficult technology situation.
Useful when you need a clear read and a recommendation — without a longer retainer.
Critical initiative
TemporaryTemporary leadership of an important product, engineering or technology initiative.
For moments that need senior ownership now, then a clean handoff back to the team.
Contact
Need experienced technical leadership?
Let’s discuss where the business is today, what is creating risk or slowing progress and whether ongoing or focused technology leadership would be useful.