The challenge

The CTO had already left, the founder was close to panic and there was no time for a proper handover. The budget was tight, and delivery could not stop while the business found a replacement.

Our approach

  • A two-day handover to capture what we could, fast
  • A one-day-a-week CTO plus a full-time developer, for 10% less than the previous CTO salary
  • Automated a repeated manual process to free up bandwidth
  • Reverse engineered and documented opaque calculation logic, and added logging
  • Documented an architecture concern for the next CTO, then ran the search ourselves for 40% less than a recruiter

The results

  • Permanent CTO in post within four months
  • No interruption to the business
  • Total spend below budget, hire included

What made the difference

The CEO could not explain to customers how the software's calculations worked. Documenting it fixed that, and our architecture notes became the new CTO's starting point.

Client names are withheld as a matter of course. We are happy to arrange references at the right point in a conversation.