Chief Technology Officer
matched in minutes from over 15,000 CVs with the power of AINeed a CTO for platform strategy, product architecture, engineering leadership, or a cloud migration? Work with a freelance chief technology officer who can align teams, shape delivery, and keep the tech roadmap realistic. Fast, precise matching with vetted, available freelancers.
Meet FRATCH Chief Technology Officer
Ornel Franck W.
Last position:
Sales Partner at ERGO PRO
- Industry: Insurance, Trade, IT
- Customers & Projects: Consulting and selling insurance and similar services
- Main tasks: Insurance consulting (health insurance, retirement planning, wealth building); commercial services, inside and field sales; sales data analysis and forecasting; customer consulting and support; opening a new sales headquarters for private and business customers; business development & innovation management; business use case development; process optimization; stakeholder management; team leadership and training; preparation and delivery of trainings;
- Technologies used: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Draw.IO, Camunda 8, Java (8, 17,21,25), Git, Spring Boot, Spring Batch, Spring Data REST, Spring Web, Spring Security, J-Unit, Playwright, Lombock, Vaadin, H2, PostgreSQL (16, 17 18), pgAdmin, Docker, LLMs, JasperSoft Studio, JasperReports
Mario M.
Last position:
Co-Founder and CTO at B2B SaaS Recruiting Platform
Complete build of a B2B SaaS platform for recruitment agencies
- Multi-source job aggregation via ATS APIs
- AI-assisted career page scraping
- Rule-based and AI-assisted matching
- Credit-based monetization model with Stripe integration
- Live in production since July 2026
Tech stack
- NestJS
- React
- PostgreSQL
- pgvector
- Claude AI
- Prisma
Frank G.
Last position:
Agile Coach and Program Manager at Centris AG
The insurance application service provider in Switzerland intended to develop a multi-channel output system to support their customers on their digital enhancement journey.
- Established an Agile Release Train based on SAFe 6.0
- Trained all ART leadership
- Coached the development of the solution intent
- Established 5 teams in the ART. Developed the Epic and Feature Backlog for the team.
- Planned and coached 2 PI planning sessions
The insurance application service provider in Switzerland intended to transform their claims management BPO and IT team into an agile delivery organization.
- Established an Agile Release Train based on SAFe 6.0
- Trained all ART leadership
- Coached the development of the solution intent
- Established 2 teams in an ART.
- Developed the Epic and Feature Backlog for the team.
- Planned and coached 2 PI planning sessions
Peter S.
Last position:
Senior ML Engineer & AI Researcher at Anonymous Client
Project: Defect Generation on Test-Bench Images of Metal Surfaces Environment: Automated Visual Inspection (AVI), Metallurgy & Manufacturing
- Objective & Implementation: Designed, architected, and trained Generative Adversarial Networks (Pix2PixHD / SPADE) for image-to-image transformation. Targeted generation of synthetic material defects (e.g., cracks, inclusions, scale) on rough metal surfaces under real test-bench lighting conditions for privacy-compliant and efficient dataset expansion (data augmentation).
- Technical Design: Implemented robust Generative AI and computer vision pipelines in Python and PyTorch. Used semantic segmentation approaches for mask-controlled defect synthesis and subsequent evaluation with EfficientDet object detection models.
- Business Impact: Massive dataset upscaling (10x) without time-consuming and costly physical test-bench runs, while significantly improving the detection performance of automated inspection systems.
Technologies & Skills Used: Python | PyTorch | SPADE | Pix2PixHD | EfficientDet | Machine Learning | Semantic Segmentation | Computer Vision
Martin R.
Last position:
Interim CTO at optiserv GmbH / optiflow-pmc GmbH
- Took over CTO responsibilities in a technology company with approximately 50 employees after majority acquisition by a new investor
- Turned around product development by defining and focusing on product strategy and goals
- Prioritized projects by business value and reduced the number of parallel development projects
- Introduced critical chain project management (CCPM) and portfolio management methodologies
Mike B.
Last position:
Freelance UX-Researcher, Designer at Bodensee Schiffsbetriebe; Labhard-Medien
- UX research, UX concept development, and UX design for an AI dialogue system with information on events, locations, public transport timetables, and special trips. Observations, remote user tests, session recordings, analytics evaluations, RapidUserTests, prototyping, etc., using Figma/Figma Make, Claude Design, and OpenAI Codex (Design)
Tobias W.
Last position:
CEO & Fouder at Wittbix
Tobias F.
Last position:
CTO & Founder at bitminds
Selected projects:
Kiosk platform – hospitality
- Led a 3-person team while hands-on architecting an edge computing infrastructure for over 15 self-service kiosks in Alpine hotels with unstable connectivity
- Designed a Nomad-based cluster with a WireGuard mesh network for fully automated OTA updates, even during local network outages and offline operation
- Integrated physical peripherals (hotel key card readers, thermal printers) into a containerized deployment pipeline
- Reduced on-site maintenance visits by ~40% through a resilient offline-first architecture and Prometheus-based hardware monitoring
- Tech: Nomad, Consul, WireGuard, NestJS, NextJS, Prometheus, Custom Hardware Provisioning
Multi-tenant SaaS platform – insurance claims processing
- Built and operated the Kubernetes infrastructure for a market-leading claims processing platform (acquired by an S&P 500 company) – with strict compliance and availability requirements
- Designed a multi-tenant EKS cluster with tenant isolation, enabling cost-effective single-instance hosting for multiple customers
- Implemented dynamic spot instance node pools, reducing infrastructure costs by ~20%
- Set up fully automated deployment pipelines (Terraform + GitHub Actions) for uninterrupted releases during business hours
- Tech: EKS, Terraform, GitHub Actions, Prometheus/Grafana/Loki, PHP, GraphQL
Legacy ERP integration – construction photo documentation
- Led a 2-person team in designing and implementing a real-time sync bridge between a legacy Microsoft Access ERP (without an API) and a modern mobile photo app for quality control on construction sites
- Developed a PostgreSQL pipeline with real-time listeners that extract data from 1990s Access databases – without disrupting existing workflows
- Built a resilient upload architecture with a circuit breaker pattern for unstable site connections (S3, NFS, Synology NAS)
- Saved each project manager 2–4 hours per week through automated photo sync instead of manual USB/SD card transfers
- Tech: NestJS, PostgreSQL, React Native (Expo), S3, Synology API, offline-first architecture
Christoph P.
Last position:
ICT DevSecOps Engineer & Security Coordinator at Abraxas Informatik AG
- Interface role with the SOC team; improved incident response time by 45% through structured escalation processes and proactive security monitoring.
- Defined technical standards for a multi-tenant enterprise platform (10+ services), resulting in a 30% shorter onboarding time for new clients in the public sector.
- Active knowledge transfer and mentoring of a 6-person team; increased team autonomy and established a sustainable engineering culture.
- Reduced time to market by 50% by optimizing CI/CD pipelines and establishing self-service deployments.
- Stack: GitLab CI/CD, Kubernetes, Nexus, Harbor, ArgoCD, HashiCorp Vault, Grafana, Python, PostgreSQL, Java, Spring Boot, Flyway, Quarkus, JBoss, Loki, Go, Kafka, Kustomize, MongoDB
Jens H.
Last position:
Interim CTO (occasional assignments) at Fujitsu / FSAS
Stabilization of an Azure/.NET landscape in live operation.
- Architecture, DevOps, and operational readiness; technical decisions under time pressure
- Azure DevOps, monitoring, ETL/ELT, cloud security, FinOps, and data-mesh-related topics
Technologies: Azure DevOps, .NET, CI/CD, monitoring, FinOps
Bernhard K.
Last position:
AI Consultant at Bitpanda
- Advising on AI strategy and implementation for one of Europe's leading digital asset platforms
- Helping teams integrate agentic AI workflows, optimize developer productivity through AI-assisted tooling, and evaluate emerging AI technologies for fintech applications
Piotr S.
Last position:
CTO Program Manager, Theme Owner / Senior Project Manager at Avaloq Group AG
- Clients: Central banks of the most developed economies in the world, German, Swiss, Luxembourgish, Monegasque, Singaporean, Japanese wealth managers and universal/private banks, world’s largest investment banks
- Accountable for managing the delivery of a portfolio of digital wealth and consumer relationship management initiatives
- Project managing portfolios of projects within CTO product and technology business area (cyber security, architectural changes, re-organisational transformation, 3rd party apps)
- Products: Kernel & Parametrisation for Core Avaloq Banking Platform; modules: CRM, client data management, wealth management, portfolio management (generating over 90% of company revenues)
- Key responsibilities:
- Reporting to Head of Disruptive Innovation Division; stakeholder to five product owners & two domain owners
- Accountable for delivery of annual themes and quarterly key deliverables
- Managing demand vs supply via QBR process: book of work, execution, reporting, risk management
- Directly managing around 40 external consultants (front-end/back-end engineers, BAs, designers)
- Hiring and managing resources in eight countries
- Running quarterly divisional closure meetings presenting achievements and challenges
- Resolving cross-team dependencies and internal/external conflicts
- Owning and controlling maintenance budget; planning, forecasting, execution; ensuring demand matches supply
- Identifying and staffing key roles with chapter leads
- Approach: Agile, Scrum of Scrums, QBR/OKRs
- Technology: Angular, PL/SQL, JavaScript, Confluence, JIRA (JQL)
Jakob H.
Last position:
Chief Transformation Officer at Engagement with an internationally active technology group
- Transformation and global scaling (listed in the MDAX)
- Stabilization and professionalization of the ongoing value creation program
- Consistent challenging of the workstreams regarding content, target achievement, and progress, as well as realization of the defined value drivers
- Identification and removal of implementation blockers to ensure execution speed
- Reporting to the Executive Board and Supervisory Board
Matthias I.
Last position:
Fractional CTO (Principal Engineer / Technical Architect)
- Designed large-scale systems and APIs serving thousands of concurrent users.
- Refactored a 650k-LOC monolith and led full AWS migration for stable performance.
- Introduced SLO-based observability, improving reliability and recovery flow.
- Optimised cloud and databases, achieving significant cost and latency reduction.
- Delivered LLM, RAG, and document-automation pipelines adopted in production.
Rüdiger S.
Last position:
Manufacturer of busbar trunking systems for power & data transmission
- Review and assessment of the current situation
- Identifying and defining implementation measures to close existing gaps
Discover over 15,000 top freelancers
Chief Technology Officer statistics
Aggregated from the professional profiles of matched freelancers.
Experience
21 years
Position duration
3 years
Positions per freelancer
11
Top business areas
Information Technology, Product Development, Project Management
Top industries
Information Technology, Professional Services, Banking and Finance
Certification focus areas
Information Technology, Project Management, Product Development
Bachelor's degree or higher
93%
Master's degree or higher
60%
Doctorate
16%
Certifications per freelancer
2
Most common languages
English, German, French
Speak two or more languages
98%
Based on our profile pool as of 12 Sep 2026.
Daily rate distribution
The chart shows how the daily rates of freelancers in this role are distributed, based on recent contracts on our platform. Each bar covers a rate range — its height shows how many freelancers charge within that range.
Average rates for Chief Technology Officer
Rates are based on recent contracts and do not include FRATCH margin.
The average daily rate is the mean of all daily rates from recent contracts of comparable freelancers on our platform.
The median daily rate is the middle value of all daily rates — half of comparable freelancers charge less, half charge more. Unlike the average, it is barely affected by outliers.
Calculated based on our freelancers’ daily rates as of 12 Sep 2026. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
Chief Technology Officer experts industry focus
See which industries our matched freelancers work in most often — every figure is calculated live from the freelancers on FRATCH.
- Information Technology (91%)
- Professional Services (48%)
- Banking and Finance (45%)
- Automotive (36%)
- Retail (36%)
- Manufacturing (35%)
- Healthcare (32%)
- Media and Entertainment (30%)
Please note that freelancers can work across multiple industries, so percentages overlap.
About the role
What a CTO does
A freelance Chief Technology Officer sets the technical direction and keeps it tied to business goals. They translate product plans into architecture, guide engineering teams, and make sure delivery choices support scale, security, and maintainability.
- Define tech strategy and roadmap
- Review architecture and platform choices
- Lead or coach engineering teams
- Align product, operations, and delivery
- Support hiring, vendor selection, and technical due diligence
Typical engagements
Companies bring in a CTO when they need senior technology leadership without adding a permanent executive too early. This is common in startups building their first product, scale-ups facing technical debt, and established companies modernizing old systems or launching a new digital service.
A freelance CTO is also useful during fundraising, M&A preparation, outsourcing transitions, and periods where the internal tech lead is overloaded. In these situations, the role must combine strategy, hands-on decision making, and calm delivery control.
Skills and tools
A strong CTO understands software architecture, cloud platforms, security basics, DevOps, data flow, and team structure. They should be able to work with product managers, backend and frontend engineers, QA, and infrastructure specialists without losing sight of business impact.
- Architecture reviews for web, mobile, and platform products
- Cloud and infrastructure decisions across AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud
- Delivery planning with agile teams and technical leads
- Security, reliability, and maintainability checks
- Vendor and technology stack evaluation
What strong CTOs deliver
The best freelance CTOs do more than advise from the side. They create clear decisions, remove technical risk, and leave the team with a structure it can actually run.
They write down priorities, simplify the stack where needed, and spot where speed is being lost through weak architecture or unclear ownership. They also know when to stay hands-on and when to step back so the internal team can take over cleanly.
In the right setup, a CTO can work remote, on-site, or in a hybrid model. For leadership workshops, board-level alignment, or deep system reviews, in-person sessions often help. For roadmap work, architecture input, and team coaching, remote collaboration is usually enough.
Frequently asked questions
Curious about Chief Technology Officer? Here are the answers that come up again and again.
A freelance Chief Technology Officer sets the technology direction and helps the company turn it into delivery. That can include architecture decisions, team structure, tool selection, risk management, and alignment with product or leadership goals. In many cases, the role is part strategist, part technical reviewer, and part team coach.
A freelance CTO makes sense when the company needs senior guidance, but not a full-time executive yet. This often happens during a new product launch, a cloud migration, rapid growth, or when the existing team lacks a clear technical leader. It is also useful when the business needs an outside view on whether the current setup can scale.
A CTO works at a broader level than a tech lead or software architect. A tech lead focuses more on team execution and code quality, while an architect is usually centered on system design. The CTO connects those decisions to business strategy, hiring, delivery, and long-term platform health.
A strong CTO combines technical depth with leadership and clear judgment. They should understand architecture, cloud, security, DevOps, delivery processes, and how to work with product and business stakeholders. Good communication matters just as much as technical knowledge, because the job often involves turning complex trade-offs into simple decisions.
A freelance CTO may deliver a technology roadmap, architecture review, team structure proposal, hiring guidance, or a plan to reduce technical debt. They may also support due diligence, vendor selection, and leadership workshops. The exact output depends on whether the company needs strategy, rescue work, or hands-on oversight.
Often yes, especially for roadmap work, architecture review, and coaching internal teams. But some situations benefit from on-site presence, such as leadership alignment, difficult technical assessments, or periods of major change. The right setup depends on how much context the CTO needs and how close they must be to the team.
Look for clear examples of decisions they made and the results those decisions created. A good Chief Technology Officer can explain how they balanced speed, quality, cost, and risk without hiding behind jargon. Ask how they handled technical debt, team conflicts, and product pressure in past roles.
Yes, many companies use a Chief Technology Officer in that way, especially when leadership needs to be covered quickly. The exact scope should be clear from the start: some engagements are strategic, while others include direct management of engineering leads and delivery routines. The best setup depends on the maturity of the team and how much internal leadership is already in place.
The average hourly rate for Chief Technology Officer is 126 €, which corresponds to a daily rate of about 1,009 € based on an 8-hour working day.
Of the freelancers working as Chief Technology Officer, 93% hold at least a Bachelor's degree, 60% hold at least a Master's degree, and 16% hold a doctorate.
On average, freelancers working as Chief Technology Officer have 21 years of professional experience, with a single engagement typically lasting around 3 years.
The most common languages among freelancers working as Chief Technology Officer are English (97%), German (96%), and French (22%).
The most common industries among freelancers working as Chief Technology Officer are Information Technology (91%), Professional Services (48%), and Banking and Finance (45%).
The most common business areas among freelancers working as Chief Technology Officer are Information Technology (94%), Product Development (94%), and Project Management (69%).
FRATCH Chief Technology Officer main locations
Our freelancers and interim experts are at home all over Germany — available on-site in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and every major business hub, or fully remote. Choose a city to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.
Berlin 
Munich 
Cologne 
Frankfurt In Austria our freelancers and interim experts support companies from Vienna to Graz — on-site where your project needs them, or fully remote. Choose a city to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.
Vienna Graz Across Switzerland our specialists are active in Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Bern — working on-site or fully remote. Choose a city to discover matched specialists, local market insights and up-to-date availability.
Zurich Geneva Basel Bern Countries:
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Philipp Thomaschewski
FRATCH CEO
