Build Tech Better
I tell buyers what they're buying.
I run engineering teams.
Jason Nappier
Most engineering problems aren’t really code problems. They’re people, structure, and leadership problems wearing a technical disguise. That’s what makes a deal risky, and it’s what makes a team slow. AI has made that more true, not less. It amplifies whatever is already there, revealing and multiplying an organization rather than fixing it.
I’ve spent 18 years building and leading the teams that ship software, including hiring, organizing, coaching, and running engineering across companies and continents. Most recently I led 22 engineers across three teams at a PE-backed legal tech company.
I’ve also run my own acquisition search and taken a deal through diligence. That taught me what a technical read has to do for a buyer, which is a different job from what it does for an engineer. It has to feed the model, surface what changes the price, and answer whether the business can be run after close.
I won’t bury you in a fifty-point list. In most teams and most deals, a few things drive the majority of the result, so I find those few and tell you which ones to act on first. On the engineering side I stay in it until the change holds. On a deal I’m there after close if you want the same person executing what the read found.
By the numbers
A track record you can stand on
18
Years leading engineering teams
40+
Engineers in organizations I’ve scaled
$1B+
Annual revenue of a platform my teams built
2
Software companies co-founded
Sound familiar?
You’re either buying a software business or running one.
Under LOI
You’re buying a company that builds software
The financials have been diligenced to the decimal. Nobody has told you whether the technology holds up, what it will cost to run, what happens when the person who built it leaves, or whether AI makes the product worth less in three years.
Just closed
You own it now
The deal is done, and the value creation plan assumes the technology and the team will deliver it. You need to know what you actually bought, and you need to know it fast.
Outgrown
The team outgrew whoever was running it
A founder or your first senior engineer has been running engineering by default. The team is bigger now, delivery is slower, and nobody’s actual job is to fix that.
Just raised
New money, no engineering structure
You’re about to double the team and there’s no leadership layer to hang it on. Hiring is hard, roles are blurry, and quality slips at exactly the moment it matters most.
How I help
Before the deal, running the team, and after the close
Three engagements, each scoped and priced on its own.
Technical Due Diligence
For searchers, independent sponsors, and PE firms acquiring a company that builds commercial or internal software. I tell you what changes the price, whether the business runs after close without the people who built it, what the technology will cost over the hold, and whether the product survives AI. It's a fixed fee, scoped before we start, and written for the person making the decision.
Post-Close Technology Execution
For acquirers in the first hundred days. The diligence report tells you what to fix, and this is fixing it: stabilizing the technical team, closing the key-person gaps, and putting AI to work where the value creation plan needs it, with the same person who wrote the read.
What the diligence answers
Four questions, answered before you sign
Track record
Eighteen years leading engineering teams, and time on the buy side
Ran a controlled A/B test measuring the productivity and quality effect of AI-assisted development, then built the enablement and standards that made the gains stick.
Most recently, led 22 engineers across three teams at a PE-backed legal tech company.
Ran my own acquisition search and took a deal through diligence, which is where I learned that a buyer needs the read to feed the model and surface what changes the price, not to grade the codebase.
Scaled an engineering organization from 15 to more than 30, including building an offshore engineering operation that actually worked.
Provided technical leadership for a design platform generating more than $1B in annual revenue.
Co-founded two software companies. Master’s and Bachelor’s in Computer Science. Trained career and leadership coach.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
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What makes this different from other technical diligence, or another fractional engineering leader?