Boardroom at dusk with a whiteboard of system architecture sketches and a city skyline

S/05 · Products & platforms

Fractional CTO & engineering

Q: What does a fractional CTO do for a hardware startup?

Owns the technical decisions a full-time CTO would — architecture, connectivity and cloud choices, security, hiring and vendor selection — for a set number of days per month, and can bring an engineering team to execute the plan.

Q: How is this different from hiring an agency?

An agency delivers a project. A fractional CTO is accountable for your technical direction across projects and vendors, including the ones we don’t build.

Axio Intelligence provides fractional CTO and fractional engineering leadership for hardware, IoT and defense-technology companies — owning architecture decisions, the technical roadmap, hiring, vendor and connectivity selection, and investor or customer technical diligence — part-time, until a full-time leader is justified.

Scope your project What we deliver

When teams call us

You probably need this if…

01
You’re a hardware or domain founder without a senior software leader.
02
An SBIR or pilot is turning into a program and the engineering has to grow up fast.
03
You need someone to evaluate vendors, contractors or candidates you can’t judge yourself.

Deliverables

What you get

Architecture ownership

Decisions written down, reviewed and defensible to customers and investors.

Roadmap & delivery

A plan the team can execute, with cadence, metrics and risk tracking.

Hiring & vendors

Role design, interviews, contractor and connectivity vendor selection.

Diligence support

Technical answers for investors, primes, utilities and security reviews.

Technologies

What we work in

Architecture decision recordsRoadmappingHiring loopsVendor evaluationSecurity questionnaires

Named platforms and standards describe what we build with and build to; they don’t imply a formal partnership or certification with the vendor.

Where we apply it

Industries

I/03

Defense & dual-use

C2 integration, fleet software and edge AI for drones, sensors and terminals.

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I/02

Energy & DER devices

Make batteries, solar + storage and EV chargers dispatchable.

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I/04

Industrial & remote assets

Monitoring and control for oil & gas, water, cold chain and infrastructure.

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I/01

Connectivity providers & IoT platforms

Implementation partner for MVNOs, module makers and IoT platforms.

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Proof

Where we’ve done this

Connected-device software

Platform overhaul: < 2 weeks

An AI-first platform rebuild behind a company’s pivot

Axio led the client’s software team through the pivot: we scaffolded the infrastructure and platform, then handed the team a codebase built for AI-assisted development.

Questions