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Nicolas Cava

You pay developers or an agency. Who on your side can judge what they propose?

I'm taking on new clients now.

I'm a Fractional (part-time) CTO for non-technical founders. I lead your developers or agency, so you get a technical co-founder's brain and keep your equity.

Book a free 25-minute callYou'll leave knowing what I would fix first.

hello@nicolascava.com. I'll reply within one business day.

Track record

“Nicolas is an effective leader who is among those few and far in-between. … His technical background enables him to make informed decisions for an engineering team with the relevant context.”
Samm Du, Software Engineer at Zendesk

Worked with BastionGPT, LevelUp, 8/0, Galvico, DLUX Rides, Fixrli, Cafre, Zendesk, Swile, PixMob, Maple Inside, Crakmedia.

Since 2025, I've been the Fractional CTO for 6 software teams. Before that, I led 120+ engineers, built systems that serve 1B+ requests a year, and founded 5 businesses.

What changed for three teams.

All case studies

Two ways to work together.

Fractional CTO

US$9,500/mo

I own the technical decisions and lead your developers or agency.

Advisory

US$3,000/mo

A weekly working session on what your developers propose, hiring, and AI. Your team stays in charge.

I keep things ruthlessly simple: smaller changes, fewer moving parts, one priority at a time. I cap work in progress, forecast from real throughput, and write decisions down so your people keep the judgment.

My job is done when your team runs without me. You keep everything we build. Full pricing.

Writing

Latest note,

Sleep is a leadership skill

The sleep routine I rebuilt after burning out twice, for founders whose team pays for every bad night.

Authentic leadership builds trust through consistent action

Collaboration overload is killing productivity

Most of my tech stack just became a geopolitical risk

I run a US$400K operation on Apple Notes

All notes

New notes by email.

A short note when I publish something new. Unsubscribe anytime.

About Nicolas

I've burned out twice chasing nonstop action, and I still watch founders walk into the same fire. So I keep everything brutally simple, your team included.

I worked at Zendesk and scaled startups. I was the engineer who could not explain the delay, and later the executive who had to explain it to a board. I would rather tell you not to build something than bill you to build it.

I'm based in Quebec City and work remotely with founders wherever they are.

Your developers are busy and the product is stuck?

Book a free 25-minute call

Prefer writing? Email me at hello@nicolascava.com. I'll reply within one business day.

Know a founder who needs this? Introduce them to me. If they become a client, you get 10% of what they pay for 12 months.