After three years as a fractional developer himself, Praveen Ghanta shares what he learned about hiring, managing, and retaining part-time engineering talent — including the hires that worked and the ones that didn't.
As I discussed in a recent post, I spent three years as a fractional developer myself in the late 2000s. I must have been restless in those days, because in addition to my day job and my contract position, I began to think seriously about a startup idea aligning my tech and finance skillsets. By late 2009 I had committed to starting HiddenLevers, and by late 2010 I had quit my day job and gone all-in. The company started to experience real growth in 2011 — and that growth forced a hiring question I hadn’t fully anticipated.
Up to 2011, HiddenLevers had a one-person dev team (me) and a one-person sales team (my cofounder Raj). We needed more capacity. After working with interns that summer, we realized we’d need to invest further. Two questions shaped the decision:
Those questions, combined with my personal experience on the other side of the fractional relationship, led to a natural answer: hire a fractional senior developer. We had an immediate need for a senior integration developer, as HiddenLevers was just beginning to integrate with software partners in the wealth management industry — firms like TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, Orion, Tamarac, and others.
Fractional developer: a senior software engineer who works part-time — typically 10 to 30 hours per week — for one or more companies simultaneously, rather than on a single full-time engagement. Unlike contractors, fractional developers are embedded team members with ongoing accountability, not project-based vendors.
In my time as a fractional developer, I had met others with a similar mindset. I was able to hire one of them as HiddenLevers’ first fractional developer — and that initial hire was a huge success. Over a period of nine years, that single developer completed and maintained more than 25 different integrations.
We continued to build our development team fractional-first. We hired our future CTO as a fractional developer initially. We also built out the team with full-time junior and mid-level hires, since junior developers needed more mentoring — but once invested in, they formed the core of the team.
By late 2020, HiddenLevers had a complete software development team: a full-time CTO, six full-time developers, and five part-time fractional developers. We leaned into the fractional model beyond engineering, using it to help staff product management and marketing as well. Our use of fractional resources was instrumental in staying efficient and profitable — which helped drive our successful exit in early 2021.
| Role Type | Fractional Fit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Systems integrations | Excellent | Discrete deliverables, minimal daily sync required |
| QA engineering | Excellent | Async-friendly; automation work compounds over time |
| DevOps / database management | Strong | Highly specialized; rarely needs full FTE |
| Front-end component work | Strong | Large volumes of isolated UI work suit the model |
| Core product IP | Workable with caveats | Requires 30+ hrs/week and tight PM relationship |
Fraction matches startups with senior developers who have been there before. Get a match in days, not months.
Explore Fractional HiringNo commitment required to explore options.
Here is the full list of part-time software development hires we made at HiddenLevers, with honest notes on what happened with each one:
Nine years of fractional hiring produced a clear picture of what works and what reliably fails. Here is the honest version:
What worked:
What didn’t work — and why:
Integrations between systems, QA engineering, DevOps, database management, and front-end component work are particularly well suited to the fractional model. These roles have clear deliverables and do not require constant real-time collaboration with the rest of the team. Roles that involve core business logic and require tight product management alignment are more challenging but still workable if the developer brings deep domain expertise or can commit 30 or more hours per week.
The ideal candidates are senior developers who lead teams in their day jobs but want to keep their coding skills sharp through a fractional position. Look for developers with a track record of independent delivery and experience working across multiple clients or projects simultaneously. Personal referrals from your professional network — especially from others who have worked fractionally themselves — tend to yield the highest-quality candidates.
Fractional developers can work on core IP, but it requires more deliberate planning. They need to work closely with product management and have enough schedule overlap to communicate in near real-time. If the developer brings vertical industry expertise or can commit 30 or more hours per week, there is a clear path to success. The key is planning for a tighter relationship with product management than you would need for more peripheral work.
Hiring someone who has a full-time in-office job and expecting them to contribute meaningfully. They may be motivated and technically capable, but the schedule overlap required for effective collaboration simply will not exist. If meetings are happening at 9 PM and communication is constantly delayed, the engagement will fail regardless of the individual’s skills. Prioritize availability and communication overlap over raw technical credentials.
Retention in a well-structured fractional arrangement can be surprisingly strong. At HiddenLevers, developer-initiated turnover among fractional hires was zero over a nine-year period. Fractional work offers senior developers flexibility and variety that full-time positions often cannot match, which creates genuine loyalty. The key is treating fractional developers as real team members rather than transient contractors.
Start with senior fractional hires to cover specialized or high-leverage work, then build out the core team with full-time junior and mid-level developers who can be mentored by those seniors. Over time, some fractional hires may transition to full-time roles as the company grows — as happened with HiddenLevers’ CTO, who started as a half-time developer. The fractional model works best as a deliberate strategy, not a fallback.
Praveen Ghanta is a five-time founder and serial entrepreneur. He is the founder of DevHawk.ai, an AI-powered engineering management platform, and Fraction.work, which connects fast-growing companies with top fractional tech and growth marketing talent. Previously, he founded HiddenLevers, a risk analytics platform for wealth management that he bootstrapped from inception to acquisition by Orion Advisor Solutions in 2021, serving thousands of advisors and $600B in assets. He earlier founded SmartWorkGroups, acquired by Intralinks in 2000.
Connect on LinkedIn →Describe your software or AI project. Get a full scope with story-point pricing, sprint estimates, and a downloadable plan in minutes. No calls, no waiting.
Scope Your Project for FreeWorking on a data strategy? Talk to a Fraction CTO. → Book an intro call
