---
title: "Technical Due Diligence Prep for CTOs"
description: "Due diligence is next week: roadmap, security posture, tech-debt cost, architecture story. We rehearse the technical assessment before you send it. Public pricing."
url: "https://www.marian.coach/cto-technical-due-diligence/"
lang: "en"
image: "https://www.marian.coach/_astro/talk-12.m2YAKuFB_2w98dl.jpg"
---

CTO · VP Engineering · Head of Engineering

# Technical Due Diligence Prep for CTOs

The investor's tech advisor is going to pull two threads out of your dataroom. Which two is the whole game, because every answer in a technical assessment lands as one of three things: a follow-up call, a discount on the valuation, or a pass.

The work is to pull those threads yourself first, in a room where being wrong costs you nothing.

![Marian Kamenistak speaking at an engineering leadership event.](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/talk-12.m2YAKuFB_lgPD3.webp)

## Which two threads they pull

Advisors are more predictable than they look. They go where the story is thinnest, and thin nearly always means a number with no method behind it. Tech-debt cost quoted as a feeling. A hiring plan whose ramp assumptions have never been checked against your own last four hires. A security posture described in policies rather than in evidence.

The other thing they're testing, quietly, is whether you know your own weak spots. A CTO who names a real problem and shows the plan for it reads as someone worth backing. A CTO whose dataroom contains no problems at all reads as someone who either doesn't know or won't say, and both of those get priced in.

So we rehearse it, with me playing the advisor and being unhelpful about it. We find your two threads, and for each one decide whether the honest answer is fine as it stands, needs a number attached before next week, or needs reframing because the current version is technically true and reads badly. Then we build the twelve-month hiring and delivery narrative so that it matches the money you're raising rather than the money you'd like to be raising.

By the time it goes out, the assessment has been pressure-tested and nothing in the call catches you cold.

## Working it 1:1

![Marian Kamenistak, mentor to CTOs and VPs of Engineering](https://www.marian.coach/_astro/marian-about.BisGE32e_mbivh.webp)

Weekly in the run-up to a raise, which is usually four to six sessions in total. I have sat in the seat: built Mews into a $2bn+ unicorn from 8 to 80 teams, led engineering at Manta before IBM acquired it, and spent 4+ years in the Bay Area as Principal Software Architect at Databricks. The pattern data comes from 3,400+ unique sessions with engineering leaders in 17+ countries. Rated 9.17/10 on average across 300+ reviews.

Pricing is public: 430 EUR per session, 361 EUR per session for ELC members, or 2,580 EUR per quarter (6 sessions over 3 months). The quarter drops to 2,166 EUR if you build the inquiry [with my AI](https://www.marian.coach/mentoring-chat/) the inquiry: under 16 minutes, €361 a session on every package. You only pay for a session you rate 7 out of 10 or higher. [Full pricing](https://www.marian.coach/pricing/).

[Book the free 30-min intro →](https://www.marian.coach/meet)Or email [marian@marian.coach](mailto:marian@marian.coach)

Related reads

-   [2025 strategy for scale-up leaders](https://www.marian.coach/blog/2025-entrepreneur-strategy/)
-   [What great software companies look like inside](https://www.marian.coach/blog/what-makes-a-great-software-company/)

## The other situations CTOs bring

-   [The board wants a delivery number →](https://www.marian.coach/cto-board-delivery-answer/)
-   [First 90 days in an inherited org →](https://www.marian.coach/new-cto-first-90-days/)
-   [AI adoption pressure from the board →](https://www.marian.coach/cto-ai-adoption-pressure/)
-   [Every decision routes through you →](https://www.marian.coach/cto-decision-bottleneck/)
-   [A sounding board without politics →](https://www.marian.coach/cto-sounding-board/)

All six, plus the questions CTOs ask most: [CTO coaching & mentoring](https://www.marian.coach/cto-mentor/)

## Structured data

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ProfessionalService","name":"Marian Kamenistak | Engineering Leadership Mentoring","url":"https://www.marian.coach/cto-technical-due-diligence/","image":"https://www.marian.coach/_astro/talk-12.m2YAKuFB_2w98dl.jpg","description":"Due diligence is next week: roadmap, security posture, tech-debt cost, architecture story. We rehearse the technical assessment before you send it. Public pricing.","serviceType":["Engineering leadership mentoring","Engineering manager coaching","CTO coaching","Fractional CTO","Leadership development for software engineers"],"hasOfferCatalog":{"@type":"OfferCatalog","name":"Engineering leadership mentoring and advisory","itemListElement":[{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"1:1 engineering leadership mentoring","description":"One-to-one mentoring for engineering leaders from Staff Engineer to CTO. 60-minute sessions, weekly or bi-weekly.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/pricing/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"Engineering manager coaching","description":"Coaching for first-time and experienced engineering managers: delegation, performance, hiring, team scaling.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/engineering-manager-mentor/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"CTO and VP Engineering mentoring","description":"Mentoring for CTOs, VPs of Engineering and Heads of Engineering running 30-200 person organisations.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/cto-mentor/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"Mentor in Residence","description":"A dedicated onsite mentor for your engineering organisation, booked by the quarter.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/mentor-in-residence/"}},{"@type":"Offer","itemOffered":{"@type":"Service","name":"Fractional CTO","description":"Part-time CTO engagements for companies without a full-time technology leader.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/fractional-cto/"}}]},"telephone":"+420 736 519 879","email":"marian@marian.coach","sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariankamenistak/","https://www.youtube.com/@engineeringleaders","https://github.com/marian-kamenistak","https://www.engineeringleaders.io/","https://twitter.com/marian_coaches","https://www.elc-conference.io/","https://www.marianslist.com/","https://www.mentoringhub.io/"],"address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Varšavská 715/36, Vinohrady","addressLocality":"Praha 2","postalCode":"12000","addressCountry":"CZ"},"geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":50.0734418,"longitude":14.4385757},"openingHoursSpecification":[{"@type":"OpeningHoursSpecification","dayOfWeek":["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"],"opens":"09:00","closes":"17:00"}],"priceRange":"361–430 EUR","areaServed":[{"@type":"Place","name":"Europe"},{"@type":"Country","name":"Czechia"},{"@type":"Country","name":"Slovakia"},{"@type":"Country","name":"Poland"},{"@type":"Place","name":"North America"}]}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Person","@id":"https://www.marian.coach/#person","name":"Marian Kamenistak","url":"https://www.marian.coach/","image":"https://www.marian.coach/_astro/talk-12.m2YAKuFB_2w98dl.jpg","jobTitle":["Engineering Leadership Mentor","Engineering Manager Coach","CTO Coach","Keynote Speaker"],"hasOccupation":{"@type":"Occupation","name":"Engineering Leadership Mentor"},"worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Engineering Leaders Community","url":"https://www.engineeringleaders.io/"},"alumniOf":[{"@type":"Organization","name":"Mews"},{"@type":"Organization","name":"Manta (acquired by IBM)"},{"@type":"Organization","name":"Databricks"}],"knowsLanguage":["English","Czech","Slovak"],"knowsAbout":["Engineering leadership","Engineering management","Scaling engineering teams","CTO mentoring","Engineering org design","VP of Engineering role","Engineering director role","CTPO role","Team lead development","Staff engineer career path","Fractional CTO engagements","AI-assisted engineering leadership","Conference keynotes on engineering leadership","Panel moderation","Podcast guest — engineering leadership"],"homeLocation":{"@type":"Place","name":"Prague, Czechia"},"sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariankamenistak/","https://www.youtube.com/@engineeringleaders","https://github.com/marian-kamenistak","https://www.engineeringleaders.io/","https://twitter.com/marian_coaches","https://www.elc-conference.io/","https://www.marianslist.com/","https://www.mentoringhub.io/","https://www.crunchbase.com/person/marian-kamenistak","https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q140488098","https://developers.mews.com/author/marian/","https://startupdisrupt.com/speakers/marian-kamenistak/","https://theorg.com/org/engineering-leaders-community/org-chart/marian-kamenistak"]}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","url":"https://www.marian.coach/cto-technical-due-diligence/","name":"Technical Due Diligence Prep for CTOs","inLanguage":"en","dateModified":"2026-08-16T16:16:53+02:00"}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://www.marian.coach/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"CTO Coach & Mentor","item":"https://www.marian.coach/cto-mentor/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Technical Due Diligence Prep for CTOs","item":"https://www.marian.coach/cto-technical-due-diligence/"}]}
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Service","serviceType":"1:1 Mentoring and coaching for CTOs and VPs of Engineering","provider":{"@type":"Person","name":"Marian Kamenistak","jobTitle":"Engineering Leadership Mentor, ex-Principal Software Architect at Databricks","url":"https://www.marian.coach/"},"areaServed":[{"@type":"Place","name":"Europe"},{"@type":"Place","name":"North America"}],"audience":{"@type":"Audience","audienceType":"CTO, VP Engineering, Head of Engineering"},"name":"Technical Due Diligence Prep for CTOs","description":"Due diligence is next week: roadmap, security posture, tech-debt cost, architecture story. We rehearse the technical assessment before you send it. Public pricing.","url":"https://www.marian.coach/cto-technical-due-diligence/"}
```