Engineering Assessment
$7,5003–5 business days
Full codebase & architecture audit, tech-debt and risk map, scalability review, AI-usage review, and a prioritized fix plan with costs — presented to the founders.
Start here →INIT
Your MVP got you funded.Now prepare it for the team that comes next.
A two-week Engineering Stabilization Sprint for newly funded pre-seed startups that shipped fast and have not hired their CTO yet. We turn a fast-built, AI-assisted product into a codebase your first engineering hires can understand, extend, and own.
Raising again soon? The funds that lead $500k+ rounds read the code before they wire. The same sprint makes the repository pass that review.
From CTOs, for the CTO who comes next.
STATUS: accepting 2 teams this month
Funding arrives before engineering leadership.
Before the round, the job was to prove the product could work. After the round, the job changes: customers ask for more, investors expect progress, and the first engineering hires need a system they can enter without slowing the company down.
Finding the right CTO can take months. The repository keeps changing every day.
Without one person responsible for the system as a whole, temporary decisions begin to compound: duplicated logic, inconsistent patterns, fragile deployments, undocumented architecture, and AI-generated code that nobody fully owns.
The problem rarely looks dramatic. It appears as slower releases, longer onboarding, and a future CTO whose first job becomes archaeology.
The gap has a second edge: your next round. Angels fund a working demo — the institutional funds that lead $500k+ rounds run technical due diligence on the repository itself. A codebase nobody can explain is a term sheet that never arrives.
RESULT
The next team does not need a perfect codebase. It needs one it can safely inherit.
Two weeks to make the codebase ready for its next owner.
We work inside your existing repository with the people who understand the product today. The sprint focuses on the technical decisions most likely to slow hiring, onboarding, and delivery over the next six months — the same issues a fund's technical review flags first.
- 01/ MAPMap the systemWe review architecture, dependencies, deployment, test coverage, security risks, and the parts of the product that only one person understands.
- 02/ STABILIZEFix what will block the next teamWe resolve the highest-impact structural problems, consolidate duplicated logic, simplify critical paths, and add safeguards around the flows the business depends on.
- 03/ HANDOFFLeave a system someone else can ownWe document the architecture, define engineering conventions, configure AI coding rules, and prepare a prioritized roadmap for your future CTO.
How the two weeks run
- Before the sprint45-minute technical review and access setup.
- Days 1–2Audit, risk map, and agreed scope.
- Days 3–8Implementation in the repository.
- Days 9–10Documentation, playbook, and handoff.
One repository. Fixed scope. Two weeks. No retainer or long-term dependency. We preserve what works and change only what materially improves the handoff.
What lands in your repo
Concrete engineering assets, built for the team that comes after us.
- Critical architecture risks resolved
- Duplicated logic consolidated and project structure simplified
- CI/CD pipeline and automated checks configured
- Tests added around revenue-critical and failure-prone flows
- Architecture and key technical decisions documented
- AI coding rules set for Claude, Cursor, and Copilot
- Engineering playbook prepared for new hires
- Final handoff package prepared for your future CTO
- A repository that holds up under investor technical due diligence
RESULT
Your first engineering hires can contribute without reverse-engineering the product, and your future CTO can spend their first months building forward instead of reconstructing the past.
Built for the months between funding and your first CTO.
The sprint is designed for a narrow moment in a company's life: the product has proven enough to raise capital, while engineering leadership and team structure are still catching up.
A strong fit
- You recently closed a pre-seed or seed round.
- Your MVP is in production with users, pilots, or revenue.
- The product was built quickly with AI-assisted development, contractors, or a small founding team.
- You are about to hire your first engineers and are still searching for a long-term CTO.
- You are preparing a $500k+ round where investors will run technical due diligence.
- The codebase works, but each change is becoming harder to predict.
Probably not a fit
- You need a team to build the MVP from scratch.
- You are looking for ongoing feature development or staff augmentation.
- You need a full enterprise legacy modernization.
- No one can currently give us access to the product and explain how it works.
RESULT
Your future CTO should inherit momentum, not a rescue mission.
The right CTO is worth waiting for. The codebase keeps moving meanwhile.
Strong CTO hires take time, especially at pre-seed. During the search, the product continues to absorb new features, integrations, customer requests, and rushed fixes.
Waiting makes the eventual handoff harder. Adding another temporary feature team usually adds more code without creating technical ownership.
We cover the gap with a bounded intervention. Your future CTO still owns the long-term architecture. They simply inherit a clearer system, a documented set of decisions, and a team that can keep moving.
And your future CTO is not the only person who will open this repository. If a fund's due diligence gets there first, the same preparation turns that review from a risk into an argument for the round.
What we do not become
- We do not replace your CTO search.
- We do not take over product strategy, hiring, or engineering management.
- We do not create a permanent dependency on an outside team.
RESULT
We enter, stabilize, document, and hand the system back.
Fixed scope. Fixed timeline. No retainer.
Start with a fixed-scope assessment. Most teams continue into the sprint.
Engineering Stabilization Sprint
$35,0002 weeks
The full stabilization: fix critical architecture, remove duplication, simplify, set up CI/CD, docs, Engineering Playbook, AI rules, and a clean handoff.
Request a sprint →Engineering Rescue
from $60,000scoped after review
Dev has stalled, the CTO left, nobody understands the architecture. Deep, individually-scoped recovery. Talk to us.
Talk to us →// Buy the Sprint after an Assessment and the Assessment cost is fully credited toward it.
Questions founders usually ask before giving anyone repository access.
No. That is the gap the sprint is built for. We work with a founder, lead engineer, or whoever currently understands the product best. The handoff can go to the current team or directly to the CTO once they join.
No. We do not take over product strategy, hiring, team management, or long-term technical ownership. We prepare the codebase for the person who will.
Usually not. Rewrites add risk and consume time. We preserve what works and focus on the structural issues most likely to obstruct delivery, onboarding, or ownership.
Usually yes. We agree on repository boundaries and coordinate high-risk changes with your team. Short freezes may be required in specific areas, but the sprint is designed around a live product.
We are strongest in modern web and AI stacks, including TypeScript/JavaScript, Node.js, Python, React/Next.js, Vue, PostgreSQL, and cloud-native infrastructure. We confirm technical fit before accepting the engagement.
That is common. We do not judge how the MVP was built. We preserve the speed AI gives you and add the architecture, tests, documentation, and rules that make that speed sustainable.
Angels usually fund a demo and a founder. The institutional funds that lead $500k+ rounds routinely run technical due diligence: they read the repository, the architecture, the tests, and the deployment story. The sprint prepares the codebase for exactly that reading.
We sign NDAs, use least-privilege repository access, and remove access at the end of the engagement.
You receive the implemented changes, documentation, engineering playbook, and prioritized roadmap. We run a final handoff with the people who will own the system next. Any follow-on support is scoped separately.
We review the codebase before committing. If the problem is too broad, too narrow, or better solved another way, we tell you before the sprint begins.
Your first CTO should inherit momentum.
Tell us what you built, how the product is maintained today, and what is becoming harder as you add customers, features, or people. We will review the context and tell you whether a two-week sprint can materially improve the handoff — or the due diligence ahead of it.
The MVP proved the company could exist. Give the next engineering team a foundation they can build on.
…or skip the form and book a review:Book a review →