Software & Product Risk Audit — typically $5K–$12K, fixed fee
An independent technical read before you commit the money.
A bounded audit for the moment before a rebuild, an acquisition, or the next twelve months of engineering spend — written by someone with no stake in what you decide.
- Bounded, fixed-fee — typically $5K–$12K, confirmed in writing after scoping.
- Findings ranked by business consequence, in language a board can read.
- Everything delivered is yours whether or not you continue.
Tell us what you are trying to decide. Within 24 hours you will know whether this is the right scope. From there: a 30-minute scoping call, then a written scope, timeline, and fixed fee before any work starts. You keep everything delivered whether or not you continue.
30 yrs
shipping production systems across logistics, healthcare, pharmacy, legal tech, and energy
5×
companies founded or led as CEO, CTO, or architect
24 hrs
direct answer on whether the engagement is the right fit — no pitch, no prep
A vendor’s rebuild estimate is on the desk and there is no internal way to check whether it is accurate.
A new CTO just arrived — or just left — and no one has a clear picture of what the codebase actually contains.
A deal is moving toward close and the technical health of the target has not been independently verified.
Engineering spend keeps climbing, release dates keep moving, and no one can name where the money and the calendar time are actually going.
The cost of getting it wrong is not the cost of the audit.
In each of those moments, someone inside has to make the technical call without an independent reference point.
It is the rebuild committed to on a vendor’s word. It is the deal closed on assumptions that did not survive contact with the actual system. It is a year of engineering spend that produced less than anyone expected.
The audit exists for the moment before that decision, not to evaluate it afterward.
Eight areas. One ranked picture of where the risk actually lives.
Architecture
Structural soundness, scalability ceiling, and what the next major change is going to cost.
Codebase risk
Quality, maintainability, test coverage, and what happens to the product if the wrong person leaves.
Delivery process
Release cadence, deployment reliability, and where the money and calendar time are actually going.
Security and operational risk
Exposure surface, posture, and incident readiness.
Roadmap realism
Whether the plan the board approved can actually be executed with the team and codebase that exist.
Team capability
Assessed against the roadmap and organizational goals, not against individuals.
Vendor risk
Third-party dependencies, lock-in exposure, and estimates the client cannot validate internally.
Modernization options
Realistic paths, realistic costs, realistic sequencing.
Written for the board and the engineering team — both.
The findings are yours. The executive report, risk register, technical appendix, and remediation roadmap are delivered at close. Whether you take them to your board, your internal team, or a different vendor — that is your decision.
What it asks of you
The analysis does not depend on your documentation being current, your architecture diagrams being accurate, or your team preparing anything. The codebase is read as it exists — business rules, dependencies, and risk concentrations mapped from the code itself, not from the wiki. What it requires is access and a defined scope, agreed in writing before work starts.
Deliverable 01
Written executive report
Risk ranked by business consequence, in outcome language a board can read and evaluate.
Deliverable 02
Technical appendix
System-level findings the engineering team can act on directly.
Deliverable 03
Ranked risk register
Each finding ordered by business consequence, not technical severity alone.
Deliverable 04
Remediation roadmap
Bounded next phases with realistic scope and sequencing, whether or not SharkByte executes them.
The commitment
Typically $5K–$12K, fixed after the scoping call.
Bounded engagement. No open scope. You know what you are committing to before work begins.
The range reflects most engagements. The exact fee is confirmed in writing after the scoping call and may vary based on codebase size, number of systems in scope, and audit depth agreed upfront.
Judgment from the accountable seat, with nothing to sell you afterward.
Carried this class of decision as the accountable executive
At KeyCentrix, Brandon Shuey led a COBOL-to-.NET redesign with 30 developers over two years while the legacy platform stayed live for hundreds of pharmacies through the cutover. He has carried that class of decision as the accountable executive, not reviewed it from outside after the fact.
An outside read changed the next decision, not just the execution
A contract management SaaS had legacy CLM data extraction blocking its entire product roadmap. Diagnosed, extracted 50,000+ records, roadmap unblocked — four weeks. A healthcare SaaS had a UI modernization that had been stalled for 18 months. A reframe of the problem scope — not a larger team — got it into production in six weeks without pulling the internal team off other work.
No stake in what you decide
SharkByte has no stake in the vendor, the rebuild, or the hire. No vendor relationship. No referral arrangement. No rebuild contract standing by. A no-rebuild finding is a legitimate outcome; the report says what the codebase shows.
Who performs it
Brandon Shuey has been the technical decision-maker — not a consultant advising one — at five engineering organizations over thirty years. He has been on both sides of a rebuild estimate. He has carried the business consequence of technical calls at the CEO and CTO level. The audit is performed by the same person who reads the findings with you.
Is this going to tell us we need a rewrite?
Maybe. Maybe not. If the architecture is sound and the delivery problems are organizational, the report says so. A clean bill of health is a real finding.
Our system is too complex and undocumented for an outsider to assess.
Complexity is the job. The analysis tooling maps business rules, dependencies, and architecture directly from the source regardless of documentation quality. The more undocumented the system, the more the analysis surfaces findings the internal team already suspects but cannot quantify for a board or an acquirer.
Our engineers will think they are being graded.
The report is not about people. Team capability is assessed against the roadmap — what the team is being asked to do, whether that scope is realistic, whether the org is set up to deliver it. The technical appendix is written to give the engineering team leverage: documented findings they can take into a conversation about resourcing, decisions, or architectural changes they could not get funded from inside.
What if we do not continue with SharkByte after the audit?
You keep everything: executive report, risk register, technical appendix, remediation roadmap. The audit stands on its own regardless of what follows.
What if we are already close to signing a rebuild contract?
The right window for an independent read is before the contract is signed, not after. Once you are committed, the audit informs a plan you are already executing against. The findings mean something different when the decision is still open.
Right fit
A rebuild, acquisition, or major engineering commitment is in motion and needs an independent technical read before the decision is made. A CTO has just arrived or departed. A vendor’s estimate cannot be checked internally.
Not a fit
Ongoing staff augmentation, general roadmap exploration without a specific technical question to anchor it, or any engagement where an independent finding is not the actual need.
What happens next
- 01
Tell us the problem — two minutes.
- 02
Direct answer within 24 hours on whether it’s a fit.
- 03
If it is: a 30-minute scoping call.
- 04
Written scope, timeline, and fixed fee before any work starts. You keep everything delivered.
Findings are an independent professional assessment and do not constitute a guarantee of any business, transaction, or investment outcome.
Final step
Book a Risk Review — typically $5K–$12K, fixed fee
Two minutes to describe the situation. A direct answer within 24 hours on fit. The scope and fee are written down before work starts, and everything the audit produces is yours to keep.
Tell us what you are trying to decide. You will know within a day whether this is the right engagement. No pitch. No prep. If it is not a fit, I will tell you.