Capabilities·platform·Operate
Service

Operate

Engineering ownership on retainer. About twenty hours a week.

A monthly fractional CTO engagement. ~20 hours/week of focused engineering, architecture, and ownership of one critical surface area. Best for post-Build clients and growing SMBs without an in-house technical lead.

$2,500/mo
Quarterly minimumMonthly subscription
Book a discovery call
By the numbers

Typical results

guaranteed
20 hrs/wk
Engineering capacity
business days
24h
Async response SLA
per engagement
1
Surface area owned end-to-end
Outcomes

What you get

A dedicated engineer who owns one critical surface area
Weekly syncs + async availability
Architecture decisions you can stand behind
The journey

How Operate actually runs

Every Sage Ideas engagement follows the same five-act story — free intro chat, scope, focused build, clean handoff, and optional Care. Click any stage to see what you do, what I do, and what you walk away with.

Operate · $2,500/mo

Operate — engineering ownership on retainer

I own one critical surface area — site, app, automation, or platform — month after month.

5 stagesQuarterly minimum
Methodology

How we run this

Phase-by-phase breakdown of the engagement. Every milestone produces a concrete artifact you can see, share, or hand off.

01
Week 1

Onboarding

Access provisioning, architecture review, top-priority list, comms cadence agreed.

Onboarding docTop-priority list
02
Ongoing

Operate

~20 hrs/week. Weekly sync. Written status. Architecture reviewed. Code shipped.

Weekly statusPR reviewsShipped features
03
Quarterly

Strategic review

Quarterly review — what shipped, what didn’t, what changes for next quarter.

Quarterly review doc
Deliverables

What's included

  • ~20 hours/week of focused engineering
  • Weekly sync + written status
  • Async availability via Slack / Linear
  • Architecture review on all major changes
  • On-call coverage during launches
Sample

See what you'll get

Sample Operate weekly status

A redacted weekly Operate status doc — what fractional CTO ownership looks like in practice.

Sample available on request
Add-ons

Extend the engagement

Optional add-ons priced separately. Bundle at checkout or scope into a follow-on engagement.

On-call coverage extension

+$800/mo

Extended on-call beyond launch windows — pager + 30-min response.

Hiring partner

+$1,500 one-time

I help you hire your first engineer — JD, sourcing, interview rubric.

Scope

Not included

  • Hiring or managing an in-house team (advisory only)
  • Production support beyond launch windows
Proof

Related case studies

FAQ

Frequently asked

Can I scale this up to full-time?

Operate is capped at 20 hrs/week. For more, it converts to a Build sprint or a multi-month custom engagement.

What is the minimum commitment?

One quarter (3 months). After the first quarter, month-to-month with 30 days notice.

How do you split time across multiple clients?

Operate is capped — we never run more concurrent Operate engagements than we can responsibly serve. Our calendar is transparent.

Ready to get started?

$2,500 · Quarterly minimum

Book a discovery call