Two years in Dubai
Fractional CTO for UAE Startups
I ran technical operations for a Dubai company for close to two years, so this is not a market I am reading about. I know how quickly things move there, how much of the buying happens through relationships, and where the technical assumptions that work elsewhere quietly stop working.
The timezone is also the best of any market I serve: a UAE working day and mine overlap almost entirely, with none of the asynchronous design that transatlantic work requires.
How this actually works
What is different about building in the UAE
Free zone choice has technical consequences
ADGM and DIFC bring their own data protection regimes, and mainland is different again. That decision affects where data can sit, which processors you can use, and what your enterprise customers will ask for. Founders usually treat it as purely a legal or licensing choice and then discover it constrains the architecture.
Data residency is asked about early and often
Government and large-enterprise buyers in the region want to know where data physically lives. Designing so you can answer that, and move it if required, is straightforward up front and painful once you have a live production system in the wrong region.
Arabic and RTL are not a translation ticket
Right-to-left layout affects the component library, the design system, and every fixed-width assumption in the UI. Teams that treat it as a late-stage localisation task rebuild large parts of the frontend. Deciding early whether you need it costs nothing; discovering it in month eight costs a quarter.
Local payment and identity rails, not just Stripe
Regional card schemes, cash on delivery expectations in commerce, Emirates ID for KYC flows. The default Western integration set covers less of the Gulf market than founders assume, and the gaps show up as conversion you cannot explain.
The talent market is transient by design
Engineering hiring in the UAE moves fast and turns over faster, much of it visa-linked. That argues for documentation discipline and a deliberate bus-factor strategy far earlier than in a market where people stay five years.
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 uae startups. 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.
- CTO at Ofpoison LLC, Dubai, for nearly two years
- Built commerce and marketplace infrastructure for UAE and regional markets
- Near-total timezone overlap with Gulf working hours
- Existing network across the region
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
UAE startups, specifically
Do you work with companies in the DIFC or ADGM free zones?
Yes. The practical difference for me is the data regime each brings and what that means for architecture and vendor choice. Your licensing and legal structure is a question for your advisors; making the system fit it is mine.
Have you actually built for this market before?
Yes. I led technical operations for a Dubai-based commerce platform operating across the UAE and regional markets, which is where most of what is on this page comes from rather than from research.
Can you travel to Dubai for key meetings?
For the right moment in an engagement, that is worth discussing on the call. I would rather agree it explicitly with you than make a blanket promise on a webpage.
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 uae startups? 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