I plan and prototype SaaS architectures for startups

SaaS startups need to launch their product quickly with very limited developer capacity. This makes it challenging to consistently plan frontend, backend and infrastructure as it crosses typical developer specializations.

Startups often miss how focusing on simple to use solutions can lead to much faster development and easier hiring. I help startups to build and operate SaaS platforms that require just a single, popular developer skillset (Full Stack JavaScript).

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My Service

I am an independent software architect who has a background in Full Stack JavaScript Development and Cloud Infrastructure. A lot of my time is spent on exploring frameworks and cloud services to figure out how they fit into the solution landscape and into SaaS architectures. As an external advisor I offer this expertise to startups as a complementing service for their technical founders and their development team. I can be hired for the following fixed price engagements:

Planning

Hire me to write a system design document that outlines the connection between business goals and major technical decisions. It gives a development team a shared understanding of the system and collaborative workflows to build and operate it.

System Design Template
Prototyping

Hire me to code a prototype implementation of a SaaS platform or specific parts of it (e.g. authentication or payment). Prototypes prove that certain solution combinations actually work and illustrate how to solve major roadblocks along the way. They provide certainty in uncertain situations.

Protoypes
Advisory Subscription

Keep me around as an advisor. For a fixed monthly subscription fee I will stay connected with you and your development team. Call me in on short notice to discuss important decisions or to tackle difficult technical problems.

Interested?

Let's see if I can help. Feel free to contact me in English or German to schedule a first call.

References

Here are a few projects I have worked on as a software architect:

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E-Commerce Platform
A late-stage e-commerce startup was developing a headless commerce platform to replace their existing Magento-based shop. I was hired to help them improve collaboration within and across their partially outsourced development teams. My job was to propose improvements to higher management and work with project managers and developers to implement them.
  • Align development workflows of frontend and backend team

    The workflow of a frontend and a backend development team had to be aligned to handle breaking backend/API changes properly. I documented the workflow and proposed specific changes to the teams.

  • Dealing with knowledge silos

    A development team faced problems of an unbalanced knowledge accumulation and dependence on a leading developer. I interviewed all developers to identify knowledge gaps and organized knowledge transfer workshops to foster a more autonomous work style among developers.

  • Quality / performance tracking metrics

    I integrated Google Lighthouse into the automated deployment process of the web app and set up a tracking dashboard, that allowed project managers to track a number of quality and performance metrics over time.

  • Infrastructure troubleshooting tools

    The company wanted to collect and analyze log messages from various systems to help developers with troubleshooting infrastructure issues. I prototyped multiple solutions and aligned stakeholders from different teams.

Vue.js
Magento
Lighthouse
GitLab
Docker
Kubernetes
Heroku
Elasticsearch
Grafana

Jörn Buchwald

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Coding has been my passion since age 12 and my full-time profession since 2013. I have been an employee, a startup co-founder and a freelancer. I worked for startups as well as large corporations mostly on frontend development (TypeScript, Web, Hybrid Mobile), but also backend development (Node, Java, PHP) and cloud infrastructure (CI/CD, Docker, AWS, Serverless, Kubernetes). This helped me to see software development from different technical and organizational angles. Eventually my goal became to combine these perspectives into a more holistic approach of planning and developing software that crosses typical developer specializations.

  • Master of Science, Applied Computer Science, Ruhr-University Bochum
  • Professional software development since 2013, 10+ projects
  • Full Stack Developer, Application Architect, Former Co-Founder
  • German, English
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