Private Equity Associate

Job Title: Private Equity Associate
Company: Solen Software Group
Location: New York, NY (in-office, hybrid)
Employment Type: Full-time

About Solen Software Group

Solen Software Group is an evergreen holding company that acquires and operates proven vertical-market software businesses with meaningful long-term growth potential. Solen compounds value over decades, not quarters, and partners with founders to build enduring category leaders across HR tech, fleet telematics, asset management, e-health, document management, and other mission-critical software verticals.

About the Role

The Private Equity Associate is a high-ownership deal execution role responsible for leading the full due diligence process across Solen’s active acquisition pipeline.

You will own diligence end-to-end—from LOI through close—serving as the central operator who scopes workstreams, manages internal teams and third-party advisors, synthesizes findings, and translates a data room into a clear, defensible point of view for the investment committee. You will partner closely with corporate development, portfolio leadership, finance, and legal, and you will be a primary point of contact for sellers, bankers, and counterparty advisors.

Success in this role comes from combining deep transaction craft with sharp business judgment—moving fast without breaking discipline, and consistently producing diligence outputs that hold up under owner-grade scrutiny.

Core Responsibilities

1) Due Diligence Leadership (End-to-End Process Ownership)

• Own the full due diligence process across live transactions, including commercial, financial, operational, technology, legal, tax, and HR workstreams.

• Scope diligence, build and maintain the master diligence calendar, run working sessions, and drive workstream owners to clear, on-time outputs.

• Select, scope, and manage external advisors (QoE, consulting, legal, tech, insurance) with rigor on cost, quality, and timeline.

• Synthesize hundreds of pages of diligence output into a sharp investment thesis, key risks, and a defensible recommendation—owner-grade, not academic.

2) Investment Analysis & Modeling

• Build and maintain detailed financial models from a blank sheet; pressure-test management projections against diligence findings.

• Lead working capital, net debt, and quality-of-earnings analyses in partnership with QoE providers; develop a clear point of view on adjustments.

• Translate diligence findings into bid mechanics: purchase price, structure, earnouts, escrows, and reps & warranties positioning.

• Maintain valuation rigor across cases tied to specific operating drivers.

3) Investment Committee & Deal Communication

• Draft IC memos, deal updates, and board materials that translate complex diligence into the three things that actually matter for the decision.

• Maintain a single source of truth for deal status, open items, and decisions across the deal team.

• Communicate clearly and directly with senior leadership—surface risks early, frame trade-offs cleanly, and bring recommendations, not just analysis.

4) Transaction Execution & Negotiation Support

• Coordinate across internal stakeholders (corporate development, finance, legal, portfolio operations) and external counterparties (sellers, bankers, lenders, advisors) to keep deals on timeline.

• Support negotiation of LOIs, purchase agreements, disclosure schedules, and ancillary documents alongside legal counsel.

5) Cross-Functional Partnership & Post-Close Handoff

• Partner tightly with corporate development on opportunity evaluation, target screening, and management meetings.

• Own structured post-close transition handoff to integration and portfolio operations teams—diligence findings, value creation hypotheses, open risks, and Day-1 priorities.

• Provide feedback loops that sharpen Solen’s diligence playbooks, scorecards, and execution standards over time.

Ideal Candidate Profile

• 2 years of investment banking experience.

• Demonstrated ownership of executed transactions.

• Mastery of financial modeling; able to build from a blank sheet without a template.

• Strong command of accounting and QoE concepts, including working capital normalization and net debt mechanics.

• Excellent written communication—can turn a messy data room into a tight, decision-grade memo.

• High integrity, low ego, strong executive presence; comfortable in ambiguity and energized by ownership.

• Bachelor’s degree with a strong academic record; concentration in finance, accounting, economics, or a quantitative field preferred.

• Based in or willing to relocate to New York City.

Strongly Preferred

• Exposure to vertical-market software, B2B SaaS, or other recurring-revenue businesses.

• Experience working directly with private equity sponsors, evergreen holding companies, or software consolidators.

Benefits

• Opportunity to lead deal execution within an evergreen software compounder with a long-duration ownership model.

• High-ownership role with meaningful influence on capital deployment and acquisition outcomes.

• Direct exposure to senior deal leadership and a clear path to broader investing responsibility.

• Competitive compensation and benefits package.

Solen-isms (How We Operate)

· Ownership Mindset: We own the mission. We don't wait to be told. We lead, fix, and build as if it were ours. When problems arise, we run toward them, not away.

· Benchmark to Best: We seek out excellence. We measure ourselves against the best and adapt quickly, always looking for the edge that moves us forward.

· Openly Self-Critical: Leaders go first: they surface their misses early, ask for direct feedback, and turn “game film” into better decisions and better systems.

· Disagree & Commit: Leaders disagree openly and constructively, regardless of title or tenure, because truth is how we avoid bureaucracy and benchmark to best. 

· Figureitoutiveness: Embracing challenges, fostering growth, and taking initiative, leaders thrive on hard work and high failure tolerance.

· Mutual Elevation: Committed to growth, elevating teams, developing future leaders, and removing barriers to mastery and joy.

· Learn-it-alls: Learn-it-alls, not know-it-alls, embracing failure as part of growth and progress.

· Pioneering: Pioneering driven by opportunity, using first principles thinking and unbound by tradition or rules.

· Will to Win: Leaders relentlessly pursue potential, reject mediocrity, and get what they tolerate.

· Dialectical: We learn through conversation. We ask, listen, question, and evolve — valuing disagreement as a tool for alignment and deeper understanding.

· Frugality: Achieving more with less, focusing on quality, long-term value, and company-wide responsibility.

· Candor: We communicate with integrity, transparency, and respect in all conversations.

· Kaizen: Kaizen is continuous improvement as a way of life. Leaders make hundreds of small upgrades that compound, turning lessons into standards and standards into durable systems.

Recruitment Disclaimer 

Solen Software Group will never request payment, banking information, or other sensitive personal or financial details during any stage of the recruitment process. All official communication will come from a verified @solensoftwaregroup.com email address. Any outreach outside these standards should be disregarded and reported through our official channels. 

We thank all applicants for their interest in joining Solen Software Group. Only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.