What does a Fractional Head of Product actually do?

A fractional Head of Product owns your product direction. That means defining strategy, prioritising the roadmap, running discovery, aligning stakeholders, and making sure engineering builds the right things.

They attend planning sessions, shape sprint goals, and ensure every feature connects to a commercial outcome. The difference from a full-time hire is schedule, not scope — they do the same job, just concentrated into fewer days.

A fractional Head of Product isn't a product manager. They don't write user stories all day or manage a Jira backlog.

They set the strategic direction, build the frameworks for prioritisation, and coach your team to make good product decisions autonomously. If you need someone to write tickets, you need a PM. If you need someone to set the direction those tickets come from, you need a Head of Product.

Most fractional engagements run 2–3 days per week, either on-site, remote, or a mix. We embed in your team's tools and rituals — Slack, standups, planning sessions — so there's no gap in context between our days.

The engagement typically starts with a diagnostic period to understand your product, market, and team dynamics, then moves into hands-on strategic and operational leadership.

Typically founders or CTOs at seed to Series B companies who know they need product leadership but aren't ready for a full-time hire.

Sometimes it's a bridge — fractional leadership while you recruit permanently. Sometimes it's the right long-term model for the stage you're at. Either way, the goal is senior product thinking without premature overhead.

Fractional Head of Product engagements typically cost 20–40% of what a full-time hire would cost when you factor in salary, equity, benefits, and employer NI.

The exact cost depends on the number of days per week and the complexity of the engagement. Most of our engagements are structured as monthly retainers for predictability on both sides.