Reviews and assessments
Technical due diligence
An independent engineering assessment of a technology business before you invest in it or buy it. You get a clear view of what the platform is, what it will cost to run and fix, and whether the team can deliver the plan you are paying for.
Who it is for
This is for private equity and venture capital investors, corporate acquirers and boards who need an engineer's view of a target company. It also suits founders who want a vendor due diligence report ready before a raise or a sale.
What gets reviewed
- Architecture and scalability, including whether the platform can carry the growth in the business plan.
- Security posture, identity and access controls, and the handling of customer data.
- Code quality, technical debt and test coverage, read from the repositories and not from slides.
- Cloud infrastructure, running costs and how those costs scale with revenue.
- Delivery practice, including release frequency, incident history and operational maturity.
- Team structure, key-person risk and dependence on contractors or vendors.
- Open source licensing and third-party dependencies.
What you get
- A written report with red flags ranked by severity and by likely cost to fix.
- An estimate of the remediation work that should be priced into the deal or the first hundred days.
- A plain-language summary for the investment committee.
- A call with the deal team to go through the findings and the questions to put to management.
How it runs
The work starts with a document and repository request and a short series of interviews with the target's technical leads. Most engagements finish within one to two weeks of access being granted, and the timeline can be shaped to fit an exclusivity window.
All work is done under NDA. The report is written by the engineer who did the review.
Who does the work
The review is carried out by Thomas Hamer, a Staff Engineer with experience across cloud platforms, enterprise identity and production infrastructure, including work for government and defence clients. More at hamer.cloud.
Common questions
What is technical due diligence?
Technical due diligence is an independent assessment of a company's technology before an investment or acquisition. It looks at architecture, security, code quality, infrastructure cost, delivery practice and the engineering team. It reports the risks and the cost of fixing them so that they can be reflected in the price and the plan.
How long does technical due diligence take?
Most reviews take one to two weeks from the point that access to documents, repositories and people is granted. A shorter red-flag review is possible when a deal timeline is tight.
Do you sign a non-disclosure agreement?
Yes. All due diligence work is carried out under NDA. Access to the target's systems and code is read-only and is removed at the end of the engagement.