Is this you?
Tick the ones that are true this quarter. One is enough.
The stakes
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.
What the audit covers
8 steps · scroll to trace
Structural soundness, scalability ceiling, and what the next major change is going to cost.
Quality, maintainability, test coverage, and what happens to the product if the wrong person leaves.
Release cadence, deployment reliability, and where the money and calendar time are actually going.
Exposure surface, posture, and incident readiness.
Whether the plan the board approved can actually be executed with the team and codebase that exist.
Assessed against the roadmap and organizational goals, not against individuals.
Third-party dependencies, lock-in exposure, and estimates the client cannot validate internally.
Realistic paths, realistic costs, realistic sequencing.
What you receive
Risk ranked by business consequence, in outcome language a board can read and evaluate.
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.
The commitment
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.
Why this read can be trusted
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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.
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.
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.
Before you call
If yours is not here, it is a two-minute email and a direct answer within a day.
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.
Take it when
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.
Pass when
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.
Tell us the problem — two minutes.
Direct answer within 24 hours on whether it’s a fit.
If it is: a 30-minute scoping call.
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
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.
— Brandon Shuey, Principal
