Technical audit and development due diligence

For investors before a deal, founders before scaling, and companies that inherited someone else's code — an independent assessment of architecture, quality and risks in 2–4 weeks, without unnecessary formalities.

When you need it

Four situations where an audit pays for itself in advance

Technical consulting is usually commissioned not as a formality but ahead of a specific decision — an investment, a change of team, growth, or a change of vendor. Each situation needs its own focus, but the principle is the same: learn the real state of the system before it becomes a problem.

Before an investment round

An investor or fund requests technical due diligence: how well the architecture will handle growing load, whether there is hidden technical debt, whether the stack matches the company's stated valuation. The report is written in a format an investment committee can read, not only the CTO.

Before scaling the team

The company plans to double its development headcount and wants to know whether the architecture and processes will take that growth — or whether bottlenecks in the codebase, CI/CD and division of responsibility between teams need to be fixed first.

When technical debt is suspected

Releases have slowed, bugs keep coming back, nobody wants to touch the legacy module. An audit turns the feeling that "something is wrong" into a concrete list of risks with the cost and time needed to fix each one.

When changing vendors

The company is parting with its previous vendor or freelancers and needs to understand exactly what it is taking on: code quality, completeness of documentation, dependency on specific people, hidden vulnerabilities.

What's included

Five areas we examine in every audit

An audit is not limited to reading code. We look at the system as a combination of architecture, processes, people and infrastructure cost — because real risk usually lives where those areas meet.

Architecture

How well the architecture matches actual and expected load, single points of failure, readiness for horizontal scaling, quality of separation into services and modules.

Code quality and test coverage

Readability and maintainability of the codebase, real test coverage versus the stated figure, and whether critical areas have no tests at all.

Security posture

Secret and access management, protection of user data, compliance with Central Bank and PCI DSS requirements where applicable, known vulnerabilities in dependencies.

Team and process maturity

Agile process hygiene, CI/CD maturity, code review practice, on-call setup and incident response, dependency on individual "irreplaceable" people.

Infrastructure cost efficiency

How well cloud and infrastructure spend matches real load, whether you are overpaying for unused resources, and the potential for optimisation without losing performance.

Process

From repository access to a prioritised report

The audit runs in four stages and ends with a written report rather than a verbal presentation — so the result can be attached to an investment memorandum or handed to a technical lead to act on.

Stage 1

Kickoff and access

We sign the NDA, agree the scope of work, and receive read-only access to repositories, CI/CD, the issue tracker and documentation.

Stage 2

Technical deep dive

One to two weeks analysing code, architecture, processes and infrastructure. Interviews with key engineers and the client's technical lead.

Stage 3

Findings workshop

We discuss preliminary results live before the final report — to clarify context and avoid including something already explained by a business decision.

Stage 4

Written report

A final document with risks ranked by severity and specific recommendations — what to do first and what can wait.

Questions

Frequently asked questions about technical audits

How long does an audit take?

A standard technical audit takes two to four weeks — depending on the size of the codebase and the number of systems in scope. An express due diligence before a deal can be done in 5–7 business days.

Do you work under NDA?

Yes, the NDA is signed before any work starts and before we are given access to code or infrastructure — it is a standard part of the process, not an option on request.

Do you need production access?

No. In most cases read-only access to repositories, CI/CD, the issue tracker and a staging environment is enough. Production access is requested selectively, only if it is necessary to test a specific hypothesis, and always read-only.

What if you find critical problems?

We escalate critical risks immediately rather than waiting for the final report, and flag them in the report at a separate priority level with an estimate of cost and time to fix. The client receives this before making a decision on the deal or on scaling.

SOWA Digital has been providing technical consulting since 2021 — with the same pool of 50+ engineers that delivered 30+ projects for banks, telecom operators and development companies. We work to ISO 27001 and NDA-first, so client data confidentiality is not negotiated separately — it is built into the process from day one. More about the company on the About page. If the audit concerns a banking or fintech product, see also our expertise in the Banking & Fintech section, where we cover Central Bank and PCI DSS requirements separately.

Tech consulting

Find out the real state of your development before the decision is made

Describe the situation — a deal, scaling, or a change of vendor — and we will propose the audit scope and timeline within one business day.

Request an audit