Before you buy. After you close. When something’s wrong.
Technical due diligence tells you about the code. It doesn’t tell you whether the team can execute—who the real leaders are, where the knowledge is trapped, what’s going to break, and what nobody’s telling you.
I find the problems your engineers won’t tell a suit about.
When to call
Before you buy
- Can this team execute without the founder/CTO?
- Who are the real leaders vs. the org chart titles?
- Where does critical knowledge live, and what happens if those people leave?
- What’s the realistic integration timeline and risk?
- What should you negotiate for?
After you close
- How do you integrate this team with your platform or existing org?
- What cultural and process gaps will cause friction?
- What should you fix first, and what can wait?
- Who should lead the combined team?
When something’s wrong
- Why is this portfolio company missing milestones?
- Is it a leadership problem, a technical problem, or a prioritization problem?
- What’s actually going on vs. what they’re telling you?
How it works
I embed with the team for a 30-day engagement:
- One-on-ones with every engineer
- In the standups, sprint planning, retros
- Watching how incidents get handled
- In the codebase, the PRs, the architecture docs (or lack thereof)
- Talking to the people who actually know where the bodies are buried
What you get
A narrative report that names names and tells the truth:
- Team health and culture assessment
- Leadership candidates and gaps
- Knowledge bottlenecks and single points of failure
- Technical and infrastructure risk
- Prioritized recommendations with implementation roadmap
This isn’t a slide deck with a framework. It’s a document you can act on.
About Chris
I’m not a management consultant with the same cookie-cutter framework. I’ve been an engineering leader—written the code, made the architecture decisions, shipped the product, scaled the startup, acquired and been acquired.
When engineers tell me something is complicated, I know whether they’re right or just scared.
They talk to me differently than they talk to suits. That’s where the real discoveries happen.
FAQs
How long does this take?
30 days from kickoff to final report.
What do I get at the end?
A narrative report covering team health, leadership candidates, knowledge bottlenecks, technical risk, and a prioritized implementation roadmap. Written to be actionable, not to sit in a drawer.
Is this confidential?
Yes. For pre-acquisition work, I operate under NDA and minimize disruption. The team doesn’t need to know why I’m there.
What size team is this for?
Engineering organizations from 5 to 50. Larger orgs may require a longer engagement or phased approach.
Do you do traditional technical due diligence?
No. I focus on the team and organization—can they ship, who leads, where’s the risk. This complements code-level technical diligence, not replaces it. I’m technical enough that some technical diligence will happen along the way, however.
What if we need help implementing the recommendations?
That’s what the 90-Day Delivery Transformation is for. Many engagements start with a diagnostic and continue into hands-on implementation support.