Fractional CTO/Tech Lead Service — Senior Development on a Monthly Retainer. Marc Lee Pack, CodeWrangler.
Flat monthly fee. Pause when you need to.
You don't always need a full-time CTO or a dev team on payroll. Sometimes you need someone who knows your stack inside out, keeps things running, catches problems before they become incidents, and is reachable when it matters. That's the retainer.
Every engagement runs on a fine-tuned AI-assisted development workflow paired with battle-tested software design patterns. Faster delivery without the fragile shortcuts. Better code quality, not despite the speed — because of the discipline behind it.
What's included
every month
10 Hours Development Per Month
Real engineering hours applied to features, fixes, improvements, or whatever the product needs most. Work runs through a fine-tuned AI-assisted workflow grounded in battle-tested software design patterns — so the output is high quality and the throughput is high. Hours tracked transparently; priorities aligned at the start of each month.
Hosting Management & Monitoring
Infrastructure kept current, secure, and performing. Dependency updates, SSL renewals, server health checks, and uptime monitoring handled proactively. You don't think about the servers. You shouldn't have to.
DevOps & Deployment Pipeline
CI/CD maintained and improved. Preview environments, automated tests on every push, zero-downtime deploys. When you push a change, it ships cleanly. No manual deployment ceremonies, no crossed fingers.
Emergency Support
When something breaks in production, you need someone who knows the system and can move fast. Included in the retainer: priority response for production incidents. Not a ticket queue. A direct line.
Security Operations (SecOps)
Ongoing security monitoring for your application and infrastructure. Dependency vulnerability scanning, access control reviews, security patch prioritization, and incident response planning. Your users' data protected, continuously.
Pause Anytime
Business slows down. Fundraising happens. Priorities shift. You can pause the retainer with 30 days notice — no penalty, no awkward exit. Resume when you're ready. The relationship doesn't reset.
Who this is for
Early-stage startups with a live product and no technical co-founder
Founders who can hire for product and sales but not yet engineering
Founders who've built fast with AI tools and need a senior engineer to keep the architecture sound
Teams who want AI-accelerated delivery without sacrificing code quality or accumulating debt
Businesses with one critical app they can't afford to have break
Companies between CTO hires who need continuity, not a gap
Teams that need more than 10 hours of active development per month
Projects requiring on-site presence or specific timezone SLAs
Companies that need a full-time employee with benefits and reporting structure
One-time projects with a clear end date (project work is a separate engagement)
Simple pricing
- 10 hours of development per month
- Hosting management & monitoring
- DevOps & CI/CD pipeline maintenance
- Emergency production support
- Security operations (SecOps)
- Pause with 30 days notice
- Direct async communication (Private Slack channel)
- Monthly status report
Month-to-month, no lock-in
No annual contracts. No minimum commitment. Pause with 30 days notice when business priorities shift. Resume when you're ready.
Need more development hours?
Additional development hours are available at a preferential rate for retainer clients. If your product needs a sprint of focused work one month, we arrange it without disrupting the retainer structure.
What “emergency support” actually means
Production is down. Users can't log in. Something is broken in a way that costs you money every minute. You message me and I respond within the hour — not Monday at 9am. This is the assurance the retainer provides.
Common Questions
Let's talk about
your product.
Tell me about what you've built, where you are, and what keeps you up at night technically. I'll tell you honestly whether this retainer is the right fit — and if it is, we can start within the week.