Fractional CTO
A confident explanation and good code are not the same thing, and a non-technical founder usually cannot tell them apart from the outside. Getting this wrong costs equity that is very hard to claw back, and often months of a product built on a foundation nobody can maintain.
An experienced engineer asks the questions you cannot: about past code, real architectural decisions, and how the candidate handles being challenged on a technical claim.
If there is code to look at — a repo, a live product, a past project — it gets read, not just glanced at, for whether it reflects the seniority being claimed.
Not a score — a written read on where the candidate is genuinely strong, where the claims outran the evidence, and what to ask before signing anything.
Because you cannot tell a good technical answer from a confident-sounding wrong one if you are not technical yourself. That is exactly the gap this closes.
That refusal is itself useful information. A candidate confident in their own work rarely objects to a short, professional technical conversation before a founding-level commitment.
No — do those too. This specifically judges the technical substance behind the claims, which references and a background check do not cover.
