Fractional iOS Lead · European scale-ups
Stop carrying iOS-shaped risk on your own.
I embed into European scale-ups as their iOS lead for the months they actually need one. Stabilizing the team after a senior leaves, running the migration the roadmap keeps pushing, or holding the iOS leadership seat while you hire the permanent lead.
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Three ways to engage
Named, time-bounded engagements. Each with a clear trigger, scope, and price.
12 weeks · Stabilization
Your senior iOS engineer just left
Acting iOS lead for 12 weeks. Keep the lights on, support the hire, grow the next tech lead from inside.
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3–6 months · Delivery lead
Ship the migration
Embedded lead for a stalled platform initiative: e.g. SwiftUI, modularization, Tuist, Swift Concurrency, Swift 6, CocoaPods.
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Ongoing · Retainer
Embedded iOS lead
Three days a week for scale-ups with an iOS team and no iOS leadership in place.
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Past engagements
Regulated, premium-brand, and consumer-scale iOS work. The engagements that shaped how I lead today.
DAK Gesundheit
DAK Gesundheit App
Working inside the iOS app of one of Germany's largest statutory health insurers. A regulated environment with hard constraints on security, privacy, and accessibility.
Canyon
Canyon App
iOS app for one of the world's leading direct-to-consumer bicycle brands. Bike purchase, ownership details, maintenance guides and a surface for customer retention.
Audi Business Innovation
Audi stage
Rapid-prototyping testbed for new Audi digital services. Built so that anything proven could move into the myAudi app without a rebuild.
Carrying iOS alone?
Thirty minutes. No deck, no pitch. Just a conversation about what's actually on your plate.
Book a scoping callFrequently asked
The questions scale-up CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and Heads of Mobile ask most often. Answered straight.
What is a fractional iOS lead, and how is it different from a senior contractor? ↓
A senior contractor is hired to ship features. A fractional iOS lead is hired to run the iOS function: architecture decisions, technical roadmap, hiring support, the calls a permanent iOS lead would make if you had one. Code still ships, but the unit being bought is leadership, not hours. The shape suits scale-ups that need senior iOS direction for the next three to twelve months without taking on the cost or commitment of a permanent hire.
What does a typical engagement look like? ↓
Three productized shapes. A 12-week stabilization when a senior engineer has just left, focused on keeping the lights on, running hiring, and identifying the next internal lead. A 3–6 month delivery lead for a stalled migration (e.g. SwiftUI, modularization, Tuist, Swift Concurrency). Or an embedded retainer at around three days a week with a 3-month minimum, for teams that have no iOS leadership and won't hire one in the next year. Each is scoped and time-bounded up front.
Do you work alongside an existing CTO and iOS team? ↓
Yes, that's the default. I'm not a CTO replacement or an agency. The engagement reports to the existing CTO or VPE and works with the iOS team that's already in place. A large part of the value is being the connective tissue for the iOS team while a permanent lead is hired, and translating between iOS and the rest of the org along the way.
Who is this not a fit for? ↓
Pre-seed founders evaluating native development for the first time. Enterprise procurement cycles and rate sensitivity. The US market. And any company culture that uses pressure as a management tool.
Do you write code, or just advise? ↓
Both. This engagement is fundamentally about leadership, but leadership only earns its keep by making the product better and trust gets built through hands-on work, not just direction. Expect a mix of decisions, written direction, hands-on implementation in the places that matter most, and the unglamorous work of keeping the team's onboarding doc, ADRs, and release process honest.