The developer left without a real handover
Repositories exist, but nobody can confidently explain the deployment, background jobs, integrations, production data, or known failure points.
Production rescue for founder-led B2B SaaS
Your SaaS is live. Your technical owner is gone. I take over.
I stabilize the product you already have, restore the release path, and take responsibility for its code and infrastructure—without waiting months for a senior hire.
For live B2B SaaS products with paying customers. Existing codebases welcome.
When to call
The product still has customers. The technical continuity disappeared.
Bugs continue, infrastructure ages, and customers keep asking for changes after a developer leaves. This retainer closes that ownership gap.
Customers find incidents before you do
Errors arrive through support messages. Logs are fragmented, monitoring is incomplete, and each failure becomes a fresh investigation.
Shipping has become dangerous
Features sit almost finished, releases are repeatedly postponed, or every deployment risks breaking an unrelated part of the product.
The founder has become the technical router
You relay messages between freelancers, hosting providers, and customers—but nobody owns the result from diagnosis through production verification.
You need one person responsible for making the whole product operable again.
What changes
From fragile and founder-dependent to owned and releasable.
I do not promise to make years of technical debt disappear in 30 days. I replace uncertainty with evidence, priorities, working fixes, and accountable execution.
The first 30 days
The first month is a takeover, not a discovery workshop.
I learn the product by making it safer to operate and easier to change. The exact order adapts to the condition of the system, but the outcome is consistent: control, stability, and a credible delivery path.
- Phase 01
Days 1–3
Establish control
Take possession of the operating surface before changing it. Every critical account gets a named owner and every missing credential becomes visible.
Work in the system
- Confirm access to source control, cloud, domains, database, deployments, payments, and observability.
- Identify dangerous single-person or single-account dependencies.
- Reproduce the product locally or in a safe development environment.
- Establish one incident and decision channel with the founder.
- Founder receives
- An access map, immediate-risk list, and confirmed operating channel.
- Phase 02
Days 4–10
Map risk and stop the bleeding
Follow real customer journeys through the code, infrastructure, and data. Contain the failures that can do the most damage without creating a riskier change.
Work in the system
- Trace the critical customer journeys and revenue paths.
- Review recent incidents, errors, failed jobs, deployment behavior, and backups.
- Fix or contain the highest-impact production issue that can be addressed safely.
- Define what must not change until it is understood.
- Founder receives
- A prioritized production-risk brief and the first stabilization actions.
- Phase 03
Days 11–20
Restore the release path
Turn releasing from an act of faith into a controlled operation. The goal is not maximum automation; it is a path the next change can safely travel.
Work in the system
- Repair or document deployment and rollback procedures.
- Add monitoring, logs, smoke checks, or focused tests where they reduce immediate release risk.
- Clarify the backlog and select one meaningful improvement to ship.
- Remove avoidable release bottlenecks.
- Founder receives
- A credible release process, visible priorities, and fewer unknowns.
- Phase 04
Days 21–30
Ship and set the rhythm
Use one real release to prove the operating model end to end: decision, implementation, deployment, verification, reporting, and what comes next.
Work in the system
- Release an agreed fix or product improvement, subject to the product’s condition.
- Verify it in production and capture what was learned.
- Publish the next 30-day technical roadmap.
- Review whether focused or dedicated ownership is the right continuing model.
- Founder receives
- A shipped outcome, an operational summary, and a realistic next-month plan.
What I own
One owner across the parts that usually fall between contractors.
Product continuity
- Translate founder and customer priorities into a technical sequence.
- Keep one active improvement moving alongside production work.
Application and data
- Diagnose defects across frontend, backend, APIs, jobs, integrations, and databases.
- Improve slow or unreliable critical paths.
Infrastructure and releases
- Own the deployment path and production verification.
- Review hosting, DNS, certificates, storage, queues, scheduled work, and backups.
Observability and operational risk
- Make important errors and failed customer journeys visible.
- Improve logging, alerting, Sentry, and synthetic checks where appropriate.
Founder communication
- One weekly priority conversation and one written operating update.
- Clear reporting on shipped work, incidents, risks, decisions, and next steps.
Direct accountability
You work directly with me. I inspect the code, make the plan, perform the work, and remain responsible for the result. Any specialist is introduced transparently.
Inheriting what exists
The default answer is not “rewrite it.”
Existing products contain customer knowledge, revenue logic, edge cases, and years of decisions. I begin by finding what already works, which paths are dangerous, and where targeted changes create the most stability. A rewrite is recommended only when evidence makes it safer and economically sensible—not because a new stack would be more enjoyable to build.
Preserve value
Keep working customer behavior working.
Reduce uncertainty
Measure and reproduce before changing critical paths.
Leave the product stronger
Your company owns the code, infrastructure, documentation, and operating knowledge.
Public proof
This is the production work I already do.
Four examples of responsibility crossing product, code, data, infrastructure, payments, and releases.
Public product · End-to-end ownership · Media SaaS
Built and operated a production SaaS end to end
- Situation
- A photo-delivery SaaS has to connect photographer workflows with controlled customer galleries while keeping storage, processing, access, billing, delivery, and support coherent.
- Responsibility
- I own the product decisions, application, data model, media processing, cloud storage, access controls, custom domains, subscriptions, releases, and production operation.
- Verified result
- SendPhoto is a live public product with its complete product-to-production path under one accountable technical owner.
Anonymized client · Cybersecurity SaaS
Translated a CTO’s cybersecurity vision into the product he had been trying to build
- Situation
- The inherited agency build contained code, but the intended assessment and risk model was still being lost between stakeholder conversations and implementation.
- Responsibility
- I became the CTO’s technical counterpart, learned the domain, reworked the MVP around its real data lifecycle, and stayed accountable through releases, recovery, repair, and continued delivery.
- Verified result
- The handover became long-term technical ownership of an operating platform designed for large, recurring assessment datasets and continued production change.
Anonymized client · Communications + payments
Rescued the critical paths of a live communications and payments platform
A complete operating lifecycle
- Situation
- A mature marketplace had broken and unpaid calls, customers stranded on hold, fragile payment state, weak failure visibility, a slow browsing path, and releases that were difficult to trust.
- Responsibility
- I took responsibility across both applications and the complete development lifecycle, following failures through communications, payments, security, moderation, monitoring, review, and deployment.
- Verified result
- I handed over a steadier, faster platform with a complete development lifecycle: reviewed changes, repeatable releases, device-fingerprinting and fraud controls, machine-learning-assisted media moderation, and monitoring that turns production failures into fixes. The principal measured database path also fell from roughly 7–8 seconds to 338–581 milliseconds.
Anonymized client · Event photography commerce
Turned a raw source handover into a product the owner could safely keep developing
Supplier handoversource-handover.zip One opaque snapshot
Owner-controlled system Versioned, staged, releasable, and connected
- Situation
- A live event-photography commerce platform arrived from its previous supplier as a raw ZIP rather than a trustworthy handover, test environment, or release system.
- Responsibility
- I converted the archive into maintained software, established a controlled delivery path, handled urgent event work, and continued development through the product’s revenue path.
- Verified result
- The business gained a versioned product, a repeatable route to release, an isolated place to test, a connected event-floor workflow, and a path to keep changing checkout and payments without depending on the previous supplier.
More selected production work is available in the project archive.
Fit and non-fit
A narrow offer works because it says no.
A good fit
- You are the founder or CEO of a B2B SaaS company.
- The product is live and has paying customers.
- A developer left, ownership is unclear, stability is poor, or releases are blocked.
- You can provide authorized access to the code and relevant infrastructure.
- You want one senior person accountable across diagnosis, decisions, and delivery.
- You can commit an ongoing monthly budget to protecting and advancing the product.
Not a fit
- You only have an idea or design and need a new MVP.
- You want to assign isolated tickets while retaining technical coordination yourself.
- You need a 24/7 operations center or guaranteed round-the-clock response.
- You expect a complete rewrite inside a one-month retainer.
- You are looking only for the lowest-cost developer.
- The product or business cannot lawfully provide access to its systems and data.
How the engagement works
A paid takeover, then a monthly working relationship.
The first month establishes control, addresses the highest-risk work, restores the release path, and produces the next operating plan. We then decide whether monthly ownership remains useful.
Check whether the retainer fitsPaid first 30 days · Monthly rolling after review
- One senior technical owner
- One active delivery lane
- Production incident triage during agreed working hours
- Application, database, deployment, and infrastructure work
- Weekly founder planning and written status
- A maintained risk and priority view
- Documentation and handover owned by your company
- No long-term lock-in after the first month
Large new modules, parallel product streams, formal audits, and 24/7 coverage are scoped separately. If the product requires broader reserved capacity, the engagement is scoped separately.
Your repositories, cloud accounts, code, and documentation remain yours. If the engagement ends, the handover does not become a separate hostage fee.
Why this model
Built for the gap between “find another freelancer” and “hire a full-time technical leader.”
- 01
Ticket-based freelancer
Solves the assigned issue but leaves diagnosis and coordination with the founder.
With Production Rescue Owns diagnosis, priority, implementation, release, and verification. - 02
General development agency
May rotate people or begin with a large discovery process.
With Production Rescue One directly accountable senior lead enters the existing product. - 03
Advisory-only fractional CTO
Can explain what should happen but may not implement it.
With Production Rescue Combines technical judgment with hands-on code and production work. - 04
Full-time senior hire
A strong long-term option, but recruiting and onboarding take time.
With Production Rescue Establishes continuity now and can hand over to the permanent hire.
Owner-controlled continuity
The takeover should reduce dependency, not create a new one.
What I will not do
No fashionable rewrite, hidden account, or anonymous handoff.
I will not force a fashionable rewrite, hide work in accounts you do not control, or rotate unknown people through the product.
Confidentiality
Sensitive access is handled deliberately.
I use company-controlled access, least-privilege permissions, and an NDA where appropriate.
Before a takeover
The questions to settle before a takeover.
Clear boundaries make urgent work safer for both sides.
Can you really work with someone else’s code?
Yes. The offer is specifically designed for existing products. I begin by reproducing behavior, tracing critical paths, and identifying operational risk. I do not require a clean codebase or perfect documentation before starting.
Do you only advise, or do you write the code?
I do both. I make the technical decisions, implement or supervise the changes, own the release path, and verify the result in production. This is hands-on ownership, not a report that the founder must give to another developer.
Which technology stacks do you support?
My strongest production experience is with PHP and Laravel, TypeScript and Node.js/NestJS, React/Next.js/Angular, PostgreSQL and MySQL, AWS, DigitalOcean, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloudflare, and common payment, messaging, media, and monitoring integrations. I assess adjacent stacks before accepting responsibility rather than pretending every codebase is identical.
What if there are no tests or documentation?
That is common in a rescue. I first protect the most important customer and revenue paths, then add the smallest useful tests and runbooks around the places where failure would be expensive.
Will you rewrite the product?
Not by default. A rewrite can consume months while recreating behavior customers already depend on. I preserve working value and recommend replacement only when evidence shows that targeted repair is no longer the safer economic choice.
Can you start during an active incident?
Possibly, subject to availability and safe access. State that the product is currently down or losing transactions in the fit-call request. The standard retainer is not a 24/7 emergency-response service, and no recovery time is promised before the system is inspected.
Will you replace our CTO or existing developers?
Not necessarily. I can bridge a gap while you hire, own production alongside a small team, or stabilize the product and hand it to a permanent technical leader. The role is defined by the missing responsibility, not by a title.
Who will actually work on the product?
You work directly with me, Oleg. I remain responsible for the technical plan and result. A trusted specialist is involved only when useful and transparent to you.
How quickly do you respond?
During onboarding, I agree working hours, severity levels, and response expectations with you. Critical production problems take priority over planned work. The base retainer does not include round-the-clock on-call coverage.
Who owns the code and infrastructure?
You do. Work happens in company-controlled repositories and accounts wherever practical. Documentation, runbooks, and changes created for the product remain with the company.
Is there a long contract?
The first 30 days are the paid takeover period. After that, the retainer continues monthly if both sides consider it useful. A clean handover is part of responsible ownership.
What happens before I pay?
I hold a short fit call with you focused on the product’s current condition, the trigger event, access, priorities, and commercial fit. If the retainer is appropriate, I send a concise scope and start plan. Exhaustive codebase investigation begins after the engagement starts.
What if the product needs more than one delivery stream?
The focused retainer protects one delivery stream. If several priorities must move in parallel, a dedicated ownership model or a larger project is scoped separately.
Find out whether I can take over.
Share the public context and what changed. I will review it personally and tell you within one business day whether a short fit call makes sense.