Your lead engineer left. The roadmap doesn't have to leave with them.
The person who held the whole system in their head walked out. Releases are stalling, hiring will take months, and the board wants to know how you'll keep shipping. We embed a named tech lead who absorbs the context, stabilizes delivery, and keeps the roadmap moving while you decide whether to rehire — or whether you even need to.
Fractional lead from €3k / month · embedded team from €12k / month · Founder reply in ~6h
- Day one
- A NAMED TECH LEAD ON YOUR CALLS
- 2 weeks
- TO A WRITTEN CONTEXT MAP
- 24 / 5.0
- CLUTCH REVIEWS · AVG.
When founders bring us in for CTO continuity.
A CTO leaving is one of the riskiest moments in a SaaS company's life. We're the team you call when the calendar can't wait for a 6-month executive search. If one of these reads like your week, we should talk.
- 01
The person who held the system in their head is gone.
Nothing is documented well enough to onboard a replacement. The runbook is in Slack DMs and someone else's notebook. Every incident turns into archaeology.
WHAT WE DOA named tech lead absorbs the context fast — code, infra, decisions, the why behind the architecture — and writes down what the previous person never did.
- 02
Releases are stalling and the board is asking.
Sprints slip without a single owner of the technical roadmap. Customers feel it, support tickets grow, and you can't honestly tell investors when the next release ships.
WHAT WE DODelivery stabilizes inside the first month: a roadmap you can defend in a board meeting, weekly demos, and someone accountable for what ships when.
- 03
You don't know whether to rehire — or what to hire for.
A CTO search takes 4–9 months, and you're not even sure the role you'd post is the role you actually need. Meanwhile every week without a technical lead costs you product momentum.
WHAT WE DOA senior team that keeps the product moving while you take the time to decide. When you're ready, we hand off — or stay — on your terms.
Two weeks to absorb the context.
Then a tech lead who owns the roadmap.
Every engagement starts with a fixed-scope, fixed-fee context absorption. You leave with a written map of the codebase and the first 90 days in 14 days — whether or not we keep going together. No long discoveries, no open-ended retainers, no surprise invoices. We ran exactly this shape for Optilogic / Cosmic Frog while their leadership reshaped — and shipped the product to General Availability.
2-week context absorption
A senior tech lead reads the codebase, sits in your stand-ups, talks to whoever's still on the team, and writes down what the departing engineer never did — architecture, runbooks, risks, the first 90 days of work. You keep the document either way.
Fixed fee · 14 daysA named tech lead, embedded
The same person who ran the diagnostic stays on as your tech lead — on every stand-up, every release call, every board update. Backed by 3–5 senior engineers as needed so delivery doesn't depend on one person again.
Monthly retainerWeekly demos, monthly retros
You see working software every Friday and a written delivery update you can forward to the board. Every month we decide together whether to stay, scale up, or hand off — and to whom.
Always reversibleWritten updates a non-technical board can read. The technical risk gets visibly owned by a named person.
When you hire a permanent CTO, we hand off cleanly — repo, docs, context, all of it. The roadmap doesn't restart.
One named tech lead from day one. Not a rotating bench, not an account manager relaying messages.
Roadmaps we kept moving when the people who started them couldn't.
Featured: Optilogic / Cosmic Frog — we owned delivery of the product while their internal leadership reshaped, and shipped it to General Availability. Named clients, full project breakdowns, independently reviewed on Clutch.
Kodius was really instrumental in building Cosmic Frog and getting the product to General Availability.
Read case →They are very goal-oriented and they definitely get the job done. Kodius understood what we needed and delivered.
Read case →They take the time to understand the project and they execute. We've never had any issues.
Read case →What CTO continuity actually is.
Not a fractional advisor in a Slack channel, not a body shop. Here's the concrete shape of the engagement — the same one behind Cosmic Frog — so you can tell exactly what you'd be buying.
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A named tech lead from day one
One senior person owns the technical roadmap and shows up on every call — your stand-ups, your release reviews, your board updates. Not an account manager, not a rotating bench.
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A 14-day context map
Architecture, runbooks, decisions, risks — written down in two weeks. You keep the document whether or not we keep going.
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Board-facing delivery updates
A weekly written update non-technical investors can actually read. The technical risk gets visibly owned by a named person.
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3–5 senior engineers as needed
The lead is backed by a senior team so delivery never depends on one person again — and so you can scale up the moment a release demands it.
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Your repo, your accounts, your IP
Everything stays in your name. When you hire a permanent CTO, the hand-off is clean — repo, infra, docs, context, all of it.
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A reversible engagement
Month to month. Stay as long as you need a tech lead — scale down or hand off the day you don't.
What founders ask when their tech lead just left.
The honest answers — the same ones you'd get on a call.
Is this a fractional CTO advisory?
No. A fractional CTO advises; we deliver. A named senior tech lead owns the roadmap day-to-day, attends your stand-ups, runs releases, and is backed by a team that actually ships the work. Advisory is included; it's not the product.
What if our previous engineer left nothing documented?
That's the common case. The 2-week absorption starts by reading the code, sitting in your team's day, and talking to whoever's still around — then writing down what was never written down. You keep that document either way.
What happens when we hire a permanent CTO?
We hand off cleanly — repo, docs, context, runbooks, all of it — and roll off on your schedule. The roadmap doesn't restart. We've designed the engagement so a permanent hire inherits a moving product, not a black box.
How fast can you actually start?
The diagnostic call happens within the week. The 2-week absorption begins as soon as we sign — typically days, not weeks — because the cost of waiting in this situation is what brought you here.
What do we own at the end?
Everything — the code, the repo, the accounts, the documentation we wrote during the engagement, all in your name from day one. Nothing to claw back, nothing licensed back.
Keep the roadmap moving while you decide what comes next.
Tell us what shipped, what stalled, and who left. In 14 days you'll have a written context map of the codebase and a clear first 90 days — whether or not we keep going together.
Book a discovery call →Fractional lead from €3k / month · embedded team from €12k / month. See tiers →