Services
CTO-as-a-Service

CTO-as-a-Service in Dubai

Get a senior CTO on your side without hiring full-time. Stralya’s CTO-as-a-Service gives you the strategic technical leadership, architecture decisions and delivery oversight you need to take critical web projects across the finish line – on time, on budget, and ready to scale in the cloud.

CTO-as-a-Service scope

What our CTO-as-a-Service covers in practice

Our CTO-as-a-Service is intentionally focused on what matters most for high-stakes digital projects: clear strategy, robust architecture, disciplined delivery and long-term maintainability. Below is an overview of what is typically included when you engage Stralya as your fractional or interim CTO in Dubai.

Core responsibilities and deliverables

Defining your technology vision and aligning it with business objectives and KPIs.

Designing cloud-native architectures on AWS, Azure or GCP tailored to your constraints.

Establishing security, compliance and data protection principles aligned with regional expectations.

Structuring engineering teams, roles, responsibilities and collaboration models.

Designing CI/CD pipelines, deployment strategies and rollback procedures.

Selecting and evaluating vendors, tools and platforms, including RFP preparation and review.

Auditing existing systems and projects to identify technical debt, risks and opportunities.

Leading project rescue missions for delayed, unstable or misaligned initiatives.

Creating clear, executive-level reporting on project status, risks and decisions.

Planning scalability, performance and cost optimisation on the cloud.

Preparing your organisation for the recruitment and onboarding of a permanent CTO or Head of Engineering.

Optional add-ons and extended support

Hands-on architecture implementation in collaboration with Stralya’s engineering team.

Fixed-price delivery of critical web applications under our direct technical leadership.

Long-term maintenance and evolution SLAs for the platforms we help you design.

Technical due diligence for mergers, acquisitions or investment decisions.

"Workshops and training sessions on cloud-native best practices for your internal teams.

Support in defining and tracking technical OKRs alongside your leadership team.

Every CTO-as-a-Service engagement is tailored to your context. We start from your strategic priorities, not from a predefined package. During our initial discussions, we work with you to define a clear, realistic scope that can be priced transparently and delivered with confidence.

Key benefits of CTO-as-a-Service with Stralya

Strategic clarity for leadership

Your executive team gains a clear, structured view of the technical landscape: what to build, what to buy, which risks to accept, and how technology supports your business model. Decisions stop being purely vendor-driven and become strategy-driven.

Senior expertise without full-time overhead

You access top-level CTO experience without committing to a permanent executive hire. This is ideal when you are scaling, testing new business models or consolidating your digital foundations before building a larger internal team.

Structured, reliable project delivery

With a CTO who takes ownership of delivery standards, your projects benefit from realistic planning, disciplined execution and early risk detection. This reduces delays, rework and budget overruns, especially in multi-vendor environments.

Stabilised and rescued initiatives

If your current initiative is underperforming, our CTO-as-a-Service can quickly stabilise it. We identify structural issues, reset expectations, redesign critical components where necessary and guide the project safely to production.

Future-proof, scalable foundations

By embedding cloud-native and quality-first principles from the start, we help you avoid fragile, short-term solutions. Your platforms are easier to evolve, integrate and scale as your organisation grows within Dubai, the GCC and globally.

A trusted partner, not just a vendor

We operate with transparency, rigor and long-term commitment. Our goal is to become the partner you call for your most strategic digital decisions, knowing that we will always prioritise reliability, quality and your organisation’s best interest.

How our CTO-as-a-Service works

A controlled, transparent and outcome-driven engagement

Our CTO-as-a-Service is designed for organisations that cannot afford uncertainty. Every engagement is structured, time-bound and aligned with clear strategic objectives. We combine advisory, hands-on architecture work and delivery oversight so your leadership team can make confident decisions and your engineering teams can execute with clarity.

You can engage us for a specific project, a transformation programme or as an ongoing fractional CTO. In all cases, we operate with a project-first mindset: our mission is not to stay indefinitely, but to leave you with a solid technical foundation, clear processes and a roadmap that your teams – or your partners – can reliably follow.

We start with a focused discovery phase to understand your business model, current systems, team capabilities, constraints and objectives. For existing projects, we perform a technical and delivery audit to identify risks, gaps and quick wins. This gives us a clear picture of where you are and what is required to secure your roadmap.

Based on the assessment, we define a pragmatic technology strategy: target architecture, cloud approach, security and compliance considerations, integration patterns, and make-or-buy decisions. We document this in a clear, executive-friendly format so non-technical stakeholders can validate direction while engineers receive the detail they need to execute.

We design or refine your delivery model: team composition, roles and responsibilities, development workflow, code quality standards, testing strategy, CI/CD pipeline and release management. When needed, we help you select vendors or staff augmentation partners and ensure contracts and scopes are aligned with realistic outcomes.

During execution, we provide ongoing CTO oversight: architecture reviews, risk management, decision-making support, and direct collaboration with your engineering and product teams. We participate in key ceremonies, unblock complex issues and ensure that what is being built matches the agreed architecture and business priorities.

As your project stabilises, we shift focus to optimisation and long-term planning: performance improvements, scalability planning, cost optimisation on the cloud, security hardening and future feature roadmap. We can remain as a fractional CTO or help you recruit and onboard a permanent technical leader when the time is right.

Find Commonly Asked Questions

Our CTO-as-a-Service is designed for startups and scale-ups preparing for growth or funding, SMEs and large enterprises undergoing digital transformation, and governmental or semi-governmental entities with critical digital initiatives. It is particularly valuable when you lack a senior in-house CTO, when your current project is delayed or unstable, or when you need independent technical leadership to align multiple vendors around a single, coherent strategy.

Traditional consulting often ends with a slide deck. Our CTO-as-a-Service combines strategic advice with hands-on involvement and ownership of outcomes. We do not just recommend; we help design architectures, structure teams, select tools, review code-level decisions and oversee delivery. Our model is project-first and outcome-driven, with a clear commitment to seeing your initiative cross the finish line in a stable, scalable state.

Yes. One of Stralya’s key strengths is project rescue. We can step into an ongoing project, perform a rapid audit, stabilise the scope and architecture, renegotiate or clarify expectations with vendors, and establish a realistic plan to reach production. We focus on transparency and accountability, ensuring that every party understands their responsibilities and that leadership receives clear, regular reporting.

We favour fixed-price, clearly scoped engagements whenever possible. Typical models include a fixed-price discovery and strategy phase, followed by a monthly retainer for ongoing CTO involvement (for example, a set number of days per month), or a project-based package that covers both architecture and delivery oversight. We do not compete on being the cheapest option; we compete on reliability, clarity and long-term value for your organisation.

Our core expertise is cloud-native web development and related architectures on AWS, Azure and GCP. This includes web platforms, internal business applications, APIs, integrations and data flows that need to be secure, scalable and maintainable. If your project is outside this scope, we can still advise at a high level and, when appropriate, recommend trusted partners with the right specialisation.

Yes. As part of our CTO-as-a-Service, we can help you define technical roles, participate in interviews, assess candidates, and design an onboarding and mentoring plan. Our goal is to leave you with a stronger internal capability over time, whether that means hiring a permanent CTO, strengthening your engineering leadership, or upskilling your existing team with modern cloud-native practices.

Case Studies