Join the Team.

Who we are looking for

We are looking for experienced, high-quality, pragmatic CTOs and CPOs who want to work fractionally, not as a wind-down from a permanent career, but because they actively want the opportunity to deliver significant value to multiple organisations at once. They want the rich experience of working across different sectors and domains. They want to broaden their exposure, sharpen their judgment, and keep growing as operators.

Our partners have typically spent fifteen years or more building and scaling technology and product organisations. They have been through real crises, made difficult decisions under pressure, and learned from the consequences. They are not theorists. They are people who have shipped products, built teams, navigated board-level politics, and dealt with the reality of technology and product delivery in commercially demanding environments. We increasingly see organisations where the technology problem is actually a product problem, and having partners who understand both sides is a significant advantage.

We prioritise working with partners who are bought into the fractional space and want to build a longer-term relationship with us as part of the core team. We are not a place to come if you want to dip in and out, or take something on for a short period before going back to a full-time role. We progressively fill partner diaries. A significant number of our team are more than 85% full with Rational work, and we prioritise these relationships for the depth it brings to clients and the stability it brings to the partnership.

"We are operators, not advisors. We improve the client's position materially, even if it means walking away."

The kind of work you will do

Our sweet spot is Series A and above, with delivery teams of ten or more engineers. Most engagements fall into one of these patterns:

Fractional CTO and CPO leadership. Two to four days per week, leading technology or product functions through transformation, scaling, turnaround, or transition. A growing number of our engagements involve dual CTO and CPO placements where technology and product need to evolve together. Typical engagements run six months or longer. Most extend at least once, because the scope of meaningful work is almost always larger than it first appears.

Technology due diligence. Fixed-scope assessments for investors evaluating acquisitions or portfolio companies. Our 5P Framework covers Product, Platform, Process, Protection, and People. Partners who join the DD practice develop a deep pattern-recognition capability across sectors that makes them significantly more effective in fractional work.

AI enablement and bootcamps. Intensive training programmes for engineering teams, readiness assessments for portfolio companies, and hands-on AI transformation work. This is a rapidly growing area and we are actively looking for partners with deep AI experience.

CTO and CPO coaching. Working with first-time CTOs, CTOs in new contexts, product leaders stepping into CPO roles, or technical founders who need to develop their leadership capability. Lighter-touch engagements, typically one to two days per month.

Partners typically work on a mix of these, giving a healthy and interesting set of challenges. You might spend three days a week leading a transformation at a healthtech company while running a DD for a PE firm on the side.

What a CPO engagement looks like. A Series B healthtech had built strong engineering but had no product discipline: three product managers reporting to the CTO, no discovery process, and a roadmap driven by whichever customer shouted loudest. We placed a fractional CPO who built a product operating model, introduced outcome-based roadmapping, and restructured the team around cross-functional squads. Within six months the board had a credible product strategy for the first time. In many of our engagements the technology problem turns out to be a product problem, and our dual CTO and CPO placements address both sides simultaneously.

How we operate

We have built a structured methodology refined across hundreds of engagements. The Rational Start gives every partner a proven approach to the critical first thirty days: immersion in week one, deep discovery in weeks two and three, and a strategic plan delivered in week four. No partner arrives at a client without a playbook for generating value quickly.

The 5P Framework underpins everything we do in due diligence and audit: Product, Platform, Process, Protection, and People. It provides a rigorous, repeatable assessment structure while leaving room for the pattern recognition that only comes from experience. Partners who join the DD practice develop a depth of cross-sector insight that makes them significantly more effective in every other area of their work.

The Rational Closedown is how we end engagements: structured knowledge transfer, comprehensive handover documentation, and a frank assessment of what remains. We leave organisations stronger than we found them.

Beyond methodology, we have built proprietary AI-powered tooling that handles the repetitive parts of due diligence and reporting. Partners spend their time on judgment, not data gathering. We invest continuously in our tools and processes because they are what allow a small firm to deliver at a level that larger consultancies cannot match.

We handle all business development, client relationships, sales, and contracting. Our pipeline comes from deep relationships across the investor community, brand visibility, conference presence, and most importantly from referrals earned by genuinely solving problems. Partners focus entirely on delivery.