Hire a fractional founding engineer

A founding engineer builds the first version of the product, makes the early technical decisions, and sets the pace for everything that comes after. Most startups cannot find one, and many do not need one full time yet. That is where fractional works: you get founding engineer output on a retainer, without giving up a hiring slot.

I know the role because I have lived it. I was the founding engineer at VESYL for close to five years, from the first commit to a product processing real shipping volume with a growing team around it.

Sabine Staggl Founder, Noisli

We fully enjoyed working with Ruan!

He is very communicative and proactive, often bringing in his own ideas and he doesn’t shy away from going the extra mile.

What I can help with

  • Building the first version of your product, end to end
  • Making early technical decisions you will not regret in a year
  • Choosing a stack that matches your team and budget, not the hype cycle
  • Setting up the foundations: deployment, CI, monitoring, and code standards
  • Interviewing and onboarding your first engineering hires
  • Staying on as a fractional engineer once the product is live

Experience

At VESYL I was the founding engineer for nearly five years: I built most of the product, designed screens, shipped new product lines, and helped grow the engineering team through hiring and onboarding. I have repeated smaller versions of that story with other early stage companies like Queie and Flipfox.

Questions

What does a founding engineer actually do?

Everything technical, at first: choosing the stack, building the product, setting up deployment and monitoring, and making the tradeoffs between speed and quality that early startups live or die by. Later the job shifts toward hiring and setting standards for the team that follows.

What does fractional mean here?

It means you get a founding engineer on a part time retainer instead of a full time hire. You get the same ownership and decision making, at a fraction of the cost, and without spending months recruiting.

How is this different from hiring an agency?

An agency gives you a rotating team and a project manager in between. With me you work directly with the person building your product, the same way you would with a technical cofounder. Decisions happen in one conversation, not three.

How do engagements usually work?

Usually a monthly retainer with a clear focus for each month, starting with the first version of the product. Email [email protected] or book a chat at cal.com/ruanmartinelli/quick-chat and tell me what you are building.

Related guides

You can browse all guides or read more about working with me .

Let's chat

Send me an email and tell me what you are building and what kind of help you need.

If I am not the right fit, I will say so and try to point you to someone who is.

[email protected]
cal.com/ruanmartinelli/quick-chat