SaaS engineering from bootstrapped to Series A
Applications $3,499-$4,500/mo or Fractional CTO $4,500-$8,500/mo. Senior engineer with Cuez (Series A SaaS, API 10x) and Instill (bootstrapped SaaS) experience.
Who this is for
SaaS founder at any stage, from bootstrapped through Series A.
The pain today
- Multi-tenancy, billing, and scale each need senior judgment.
- The roadmap outgrows the solo founder or the 2-3 engineer team.
- Every SaaS contractor profile is thin on real SaaS-scale credits.
- Billing plumbing breaks revenue if it goes wrong.
The outcome you get
- A senior engineer with real SaaS shipping credits.
- Multi-tenancy, billing, and scale patterns that survive the next round.
- Work Made for Hire on every module.
- Month-to-month retainer aligned to SaaS cash flow.
SaaS engineering specifics
SaaS engineering has three recurring trouble spots: multi-tenancy (data isolation, performance at scale), billing (subscription math, proration, dunning, tax), and scale (database, cache, queue design that does not collapse at 10x users). I have shipped all three. Cuez (Series A SaaS) dropped API response from 3 seconds to 300ms while scaling users. Instill (bootstrapped SaaS) handles multi-tenancy with 30+ active users, 1,000+ skills saved, 45+ projects. The patterns translate across SaaS verticals. The difference is scope and scale, not substance.
Billing, multi-tenancy, scale
Billing: I have shipped Stripe, LemonSqueezy, Paddle, and custom billing systems. Subscription, usage-based, metered, tiered, annual-with-monthly-accounting. Multi-tenancy: shared-schema with tenant_id discipline, isolated-schema for high-isolation customers, and hybrid for cost-sensitive verticals. Scale: database index strategy, query optimization (the Cuez 10x pattern), Redis cache layer, background job queues (BullMQ, SQS, Laravel Horizon). These are the SaaS-specific patterns that a generalist contractor typically lacks.
The two SaaS case studies
Two SaaS case studies. Cuez by Tinkerlist (Series A SaaS, broadcast/live-event industry): API 3 seconds to 300ms (10x faster), approximately 40% infrastructure cost reduction. Stack: Laravel, Vue.js, TypeScript, AWS, FFMPEG. Instill (bootstrapped, self-initiated): 30+ active users, 1,000+ skills saved, 45+ projects powered. Stack: Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Vercel, MCP Protocol. Both cases represent different SaaS scale points and different service combinations.
Stage-by-stage service match
Bootstrapped SaaS ($10k-$40k MRR): Applications Standard $3,499/mo. Seed SaaS: Applications Pro $4,500/mo, or add AI Automation at $3,000/mo. Series A SaaS: Applications Pro $4,500/mo plus Fractional CTO at $4,500 or $8,500/mo. Each stage gets a different service match based on the velocity and leverage needs. I can map your stage to the right service on a 30-minute call.
Recent proof
A comparable engagement, delivered and documented.
Rescued a slow API that was blocking user growth
Cuez is a live broadcast production tool used by TV teams on air across Europe. I inherited a backend API averaging 3 seconds per response and cut it to 300ms, while reducing infrastructure costs by 40% and leaving the system stable under real production load.
Frequently asked questions
The questions prospects ask before they book.
- Do you work on all SaaS stacks?
- Next.js, React, Vue, Laravel, NestJS, Node, TypeScript. Not Rails, Django, Go, or .NET.
- Can you help with pricing and billing strategy?
- I help with the engineering side of billing (subscription, usage, proration). Pricing strategy belongs to a revenue consultant.
- What if our multi-tenancy is already wrong?
- Common problem. I have untangled multi-tenancy at several SaaS startups. The fix is usually a phased migration, not a rewrite.
- Can you optimize our database at Cuez scale?
- Yes. The 10x Cuez API pattern is Postgres index strategy, query optimization, and Redis caching. Same playbook applies to most SaaS databases.
- What's the typical SaaS engagement length?
- 6-18 months. Most SaaS engagements run long enough to ship a feature area, then scale down to maintenance or off.
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