Regulated markets
Fractional CTO for Fintech Startups
Fintech is unforgiving in a specific way: bugs in most products annoy users, bugs in fintech move money to the wrong place and cannot always be undone. The engineering standard is different and the architecture has to reflect that from day one.
My background is cybersecurity research and I have built payment and financial flows across three continents. The decisions I care most about in the first month are the ones that are expensive to reverse: how you model money, where card data lives, and how you prove your books are correct.
What I'm hired to own
The decisions that are cheap now and expensive later
Storing balances as a number in a users table
This is the most common and most expensive early mistake I see. Money needs an append-only, double-entry ledger where balance is derived, not stored. Migrating to one after you have live customers and real transaction history is a multi-month project. Doing it before launch is a week.
Your PCI scope is larger than it needs to be
Every system that touches card data is in scope for audit. I design so card data never lands in your infrastructure at all: it is tokenised at the edge and handled by the processor, which turns a heavy audit into a light one.
Retries without idempotency will double-charge someone
Networks fail mid-transaction. Without idempotency keys and a reconciliation process, that failure becomes a duplicate payment and a support crisis. I make this a hard requirement on every money-moving endpoint.
KYC/AML vendor choice is a lock-in decision
Switching identity and compliance providers later means re-verifying your entire user base. I scope the selection against where you plan to operate in 24 months, not just today, and keep the integration behind an interface.
Banking partners and processors audit you before they onboard you
Security posture, data handling, and operational controls get reviewed. I get those in order early so partner onboarding is weeks rather than quarters.
How an engagement runs
Week one, month one, month three
Week 1
I find out what is actually true
Architecture review, codebase read, and honest conversations with every engineer you have. You get a written assessment at the end of it: what is solid, what is risky, what is going to break, and what it costs to fix each one. No slide deck, just a document you can act on.
Month 1
The bleeding stops and the roadmap becomes real
I fix or contain the things from week one that were actually urgent, and rebuild the technical roadmap so it has dates you can believe. If you are hiring, the role is written and the interview loop exists. If you are pre-launch, scope gets cut, usually by a lot.
Month 3
It runs without me in the room
Ship cadence is predictable, the team knows the standard, security and infrastructure are at the level your customers expect, and the decisions are documented. If the engagement is a bridge to a full-time CTO, this is where I start hiring my replacement.
Why me, for this specifically
Experience, not a capabilities deck
Plenty of people can advise on fintech. Fewer have shipped in it, been wrong in it, and had to fix it with their own name on the commit. Here's what I'm bringing.
- M.Tech in Cybersecurity, NIT Kurukshetra, with 30+ academic citations
- Built financial and payment flows across US, UAE, and India markets
- Web3 and traditional finance experience, so I understand both settlement models
- Founder-side experience: I have sat in the partner and investor conversations too
Pricing
Priced at $100 an hour. Not counted at it.
I value my time at $100 an hour and the retainers are sized from that, but the hours are a floor I commit to rather than a cap I bill against. If a week needs more, it gets more. A full-time CTO in the US runs about $260,000 a year before equity; I'll do that job for $60,000 at 150% commitment. Three-month minimum, then month to month.
It does not all have to be cash. The split is negotiable, from a small equity component up to roughly half and half, depending on your stage and how long we expect to work together.
Technical Advisor
$1,500
per month
Minimum 15+ hours a month
A senior technical brain on call. For founders who mostly need the big decisions checked rather than someone in the codebase.
Fractional CTO
$5,000
per month
Minimum 50+ hours a month
Around 50 hours a month as your acting CTO, usually two days a week. I own technical direction, and the roadmap ships because someone senior is accountable for it.
Embedded CTO
$8,000
per month
Minimum 80+ hours a month
Around 80 hours a month, usually three days a week, hands on the keyboard. Everything above, plus I build the hard parts myself instead of delegating them.
Questions
Fintech, specifically
Do we need a full-time CTO for a fintech product?
Eventually, yes. Before Series A, usually not. What you need is someone senior making the irreversible decisions correctly and a strong mid-level team executing. That is exactly the shape of a fractional engagement.
Can you review work an agency already built for us?
Yes, and this is a common way engagements start. I audit the architecture, security posture, and ledger design, and give you a written assessment of what is solid, what is risky, and what needs rebuilding, with cost estimates for each.
Do you handle regulatory licensing?
No, that is a legal and compliance question and you need specialist counsel. I make sure the technical architecture supports whatever regulatory path you choose, and I work with your counsel to translate requirements into system design.
More general questions about cost, commitment, and how this compares to a full-time CTO are answered on the main fractional CTO page.
Earned, Not Claimed
What the founders and teams I build with say
I had the pleasure of working with Kunal while building out my MVP and I have to say that it was pleasure to both interact and work with him and his team. As a first time founder, I had a lot of self doubt and internal ruptures, however Kunal's calm, never-say-die and never-panic attitude often helped bring me back to center. I can't vouch for him enough.
Anand Tahiliani
Founder, Debaser Technologies
I had the pleasure of working closely with Kunal during my time as a Product Manager at DhunGuru. As our CTO, Kunal and his team at Panicle Tech worked closely with me across the entire product journey, from building and launching our mobile apps to developing and maintaining our web platforms. His technical expertise, ownership, and willingness to collaborate made a real difference, and I genuinely enjoyed working with him throughout the journey.
Anirudh Joshi
Product Manager, DhunGuru
Kunal helped us architect Mosler's core platform, connecting smart lock hardware, our cloud dashboard, and PMS integrations into one reliable system. The foundation he helped design in those early days still scales with us today.
Pranav Kapoor
Co-Founder, Mosler
Building in fintech? Let's talk.
Thirty minutes. Tell me what you're building and where it's stuck, and I'll give you a straight answer on whether I can help.
Book a 30-min callSend me a message