Strategic Product Tech Diligence Director - M&A/PE

Grant Thornton; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); Hybrid; USD 239,000 - 309,000; Full time

Job summary

Grant Thornton seeks a seasoned Product Technology Director to lead diligence engagements for private equity and strategic clients, evaluating architecture, platform maturity, and the tie between technology and financial outcomes. You’ll assess scalability, security, and enterprise readiness, driving investment decisions and EBITDA impact discussions.

In this hybrid, client-facing role, you’ll mentor senior staff, develop executive reports, and present findings to deal teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 10+ years in product architecture leadership, product tech diligence, CTO advisory, or software platform strategy.
• Experience in PE-backed or high-growth SaaS environments.
• Deep understanding of SaaS business models, cloud-native architectures, data platforms, and DevOps.
• Experience tying technology findings to commercial and financial outcomes.
• Executive presence.
• Strong commercial acumen.
• Ability to translate architecture into valuation impact.
• Structured and hypothesis-driven thinker.
• Ability to travel up to 50%.

Responsibilities

• Lead buy-side and sell-side Product Technology Diligence engagements.
• Assess product architecture, scalability, security, and extensibility.
• Evaluate roadmap credibility against commercial growth thesis.
• Analyze technical debt and modernization requirements.
• Evaluate AI and data platform maturity.
• Assess DevOps, SDLC maturity, and engineering productivity.
• Tie product roadmap to ARR growth, NRR expansion, pricing power, and customer acquisition efficiency.
• Assess technical enablers and constraints impacting margin structure and hosting costs.
• Evaluate engineering cost base and R&D investment requirements.
• Develop forward-looking capital investment views and EBITDA impact assessments.
• Support valuation narratives based on platform strength and scalability.
• Evaluate engineering organization structure and scalability.
• Assess product management maturity and governance.
• Analyze release cadence and roadmap execution risk.
• Identify talent gaps and key person dependencies.
• Lead management interviews (CTO, CPO, Engineering Leads).
• Develop executive-ready reports with investment implications.
• Present findings to PE deal teams and portfolio leadership.
• Mentor Managers and Senior Consultants.
• Support proposal development and commercial structuring.

Skills

Executive presence

Strong commercial acumen

Valuation impact translation

Structured, hypothesis-driven thinker

Travel up to 50%

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Job description

Grant Thornton seeks a seasoned Product Technology Director to lead diligence engagements for private equity and strategic clients, evaluating architecture, platform maturity, and the tie between technology and financial outcomes. You’ll assess scalability, security, and enterprise readiness, driving investment decisions and EBITDA impact discussions.

In this hybrid, client-facing role, you’ll mentor senior staff, develop executive reports, and present findings to deal teams.