Senior iOS judgement when you do not need another full-time role.
A fractional iOS adviser gives founders and engineering leaders a consistent senior technical voice for architecture, hiring, release risk and difficult decisions, while the existing team keeps ownership of delivery.
This is for you if…
- A startup with iOS developers but no senior native iOS lead.
- A CTO whose own background is outside Apple platforms.
- An agency that needs an on-call native iOS specialist.
- A product team preparing for a major release, hire, migration or supplier handover.
- A business that wants regular independent code and roadmap review.
What the time is spent on
The mix changes month to month with whatever is actually in front of the team. A typical arrangement draws on some of these:
- Architecture and pull-request review.
- Technical decision records and migration sequencing.
- Release-readiness and App Store risk review.
- Interview design and senior iOS candidate assessment.
- Mentoring and pairing with your internal engineers.
- Supplier proposal and delivery review.
- Incident and performance advice.
How the engagement is shaped
A short paid setup review comes first: enough time to read the codebase, meet the team and understand the roadmap, so that later advice rests on something real. After that, a simple monthly retainer.
Capacity is usually described as 4, 8 or 16 hours per month. How unused time is treated, and what response times apply, are defined in the proposal rather than assumed.
This is advice and targeted contribution. It is not 24/7 support, and it is not an outsourced engineering department. Your team keeps ownership of delivery; I bring the senior native iOS judgement you would otherwise have to hire full time.
Monthly pricing is agreed per engagement while the right package shape is still being established, so there is no published rate card here yet.
Relevant experience
Why this work suits me
Most of my recent roles have been lead positions where the job was judgement rather than throughput: setting standards at Westpac, running engineering and the roadmap at GlowUp, and sitting in cross-functional technical-direction discussions at Motorway.
I have spent two years as the technical contact for client engineering teams integrating a commercial SDK, onboarding their developers and debugging their integrations, and I have mentored junior and mid-level engineers through pairing, review and written guidance throughout. Being useful to a team I am not embedded in full time is a familiar shape of work.
Common questions
How quickly do you respond?
Response times are agreed in the proposal rather than promised in the abstract, because they depend on the capacity you take and what else I am committed to. What I will not do is imply an availability I cannot honour.
Is there a minimum term?
A short paid setup review comes first, so that I understand the codebase and team before advising on anything. After that, a retainer typically runs month to month with a notice period set out in the proposal. Long lock-ins are not the point of this service.
Would you join our stand-ups and planning?
Selectively, where it genuinely helps. Sitting in every ceremony is an expensive way to use a fractional adviser. It is usually better to join the sessions where iOS decisions are actually made, and to review asynchronously otherwise.
Do you write code in this arrangement?
Targeted contribution, yes: a spike, a pilot implementation, a tricky fix, a pattern that is easier to demonstrate than describe. Ongoing feature delivery is not what a fractional arrangement is for, and your team should keep ownership of the roadmap.
Can an agency white-label you to its clients?
That can work, and several agencies operate this way with specialist contributors. The commercial arrangement, what the client is told, and how technical accountability is handled all need to be agreed explicitly before the work starts.
Is this an on-call support contract?
No. This is senior advice and targeted contribution, not 24/7 support and not an outsourced engineering department. If your app needs a genuine incident response commitment, that is a different arrangement and should be scoped as one.
Related reading
Would a regular senior iOS voice help?
Describe the team, the product and the decisions coming up. I will reply by email with an honest view of whether a fractional arrangement is the right shape, or whether a one-off piece of work would serve you better.