Barfas CTO prepares tech stack for private equity exit

Olga Korkova, CTO of Berlin-based pet food company Barfas, describes preparing the organization for an inevitable private equity exit. The 15-year-old company is PE-backed, and Korkova prioritized Data Engineering and Analytics first, followed by Engineering, Product/UX, and scalability. To manage technical debt under investor pressure, she mandated that all debt be documented in Architecture Decision Records to ensure transparency for potential buyers, arguing that hidden risks are worse than visible ones. Korkova believes that an investor who looks at a technology landscape that appears perfect on the outside would be cautious, because something is not right.

To improve operational efficiency, Korkova implemented Infrastructure as Code using Terraform to replace manual cloud provisioning, noting that 10% of the architecture still needs coverage. The e-commerce stack, built on Shopify, was refactored to separate core transaction logic from operational and data processes, which had been incorrectly embedded in the platform. Korkova hired an Engineering Team Lead after four to five months to eliminate the CTO bottleneck, delegating low-to-middle-level technical decisions via an official Engineering Playbook.

Korkova maintains regular monthly and quarterly strategy meetings with investors, emphasizing the translation of technical constraints into business terms to manage expectations regarding speed and cost. She argues that technical due diligence preparation is an ongoing process, not a pre-exit scramble, and that transparency about technical debt and risks is essential for building investor confidence.