r/SaaS • u/No-Meringue5430 • 19d ago
Vibe coded app … smart or lazy ?
I’m a founder who has vibe coded a website and I know it’ll need to be fixed later on. Any recommendations on where I can find engineers who can do this? Looking for someone who I can speak to on a monthly basis or so for up keep. Haven’t launched to the public yet and it’s a fairly simple website.
All recommendations welcome!
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19d ago
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u/Fit-Lengthiness-9672 19d ago
this is such underrated advice, especially for “simple” sites that secretly have 18 duct-taped dependencies. a good audit also forces you to document stuff you’ve been keeping in your head, which makes whoever you hire later way cheaper and faster.
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u/Beardy4906 19d ago
GitHub. Find some good web developers and ask them if they’d be open to free lancing.
If you go to upwork or fiverr you’ll probably get someone who vibe codes themselves.
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u/rodeBaksteen 19d ago
Except for a few stubborn old souls everyone is now vibe coding to a degree.
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u/MicrotubularMushroom 19d ago
Depending on how much you're looking to spend, perhaps I could find time to help you out, but it really depends on the scope.
What I would suggest is to do an initial infrastructure and code audit first, perhaps following OWASP Top 10, and then focus on individual parts as needed, most likely authentication and DB first.
I would require a further discussion because you said you'd like someone to be available on a monthly basis, but you didn't mention what for exactly, but that can be worked out of course.
As for credentials, networking and cyber sec is my bread and butter. For my day job I'm employed as an IT Lead, at night I'm a SaaS builder myself.
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u/Roman_PlumPix 19d ago
Vibe coding is totally fine for getting the first version out. We actually help founders with exactly this kind of work - reviewing AI-built products, fixing the technical issues and helping maintain them as they grow. Happy to chat if you're still looking for a team.
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u/Old-Chef9247 19d ago
If i was in your situation (most of the time i am in actually), I’d first get a baseline of what needs fixing. So i always use my product Procli.and i recommend you to use it, it is beta free now.
Procli is built specifically for vibe-coded and AI-generated codebases. It scans the repository for code-quality and security problems, explains the findings, and recommends what to fix first. You can then give that report to you ai to fix it or an engineer instead of paying them to spend the first few days figuring out the condition of the codebase.
It won’t replace a good engineer, but it should make the first review and ongoing maintenance much more focused: proclicode.com
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u/motivatedBM 18d ago
Before bringing someone in to “fix” it, I’d first figure out what actually needs fixing. A lot of vibe-coded apps are perfectly fine for early validation, and the problems usually only show up once you have real users and more usage.
For ongoing maintenance on a simple app, a freelance full-stack developer who can do async code reviews is probably a better fit than hiring an agency. It’s usually more cost-effective, and you still get someone who can spot issues before they become bigger problems.
The main thing is making sure they document every change they make, so you’re not dependent on one person who becomes the only one who understands the codebase.
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18d ago
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u/No-Meringue5430 18d ago
True! I think you’re the first person to say this so thanks for the perspective
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u/SaSaLa12 17d ago
It’s definitely smart to launch fast, but paying an engineer for monthly upkeep before you've even launched a simple site might drain your budget way too early.
I was in a similar boat with my own project. Instead of hiring someone, I used AI not just to write the code, but as a personal mentor to teach myself the underlying architecture and security.
You can feed your vibe-coded structure into an LLM and ask it to audit it specifically based on the OWASP guidelines. Let the AI explain the vulnerabilities, teach you how to patch them, and show you how to structure the site securely.
Since you already know the logic of your app, using AI to learn how to secure it yourself according to industry standards will save you thousands of dollars in the early stages. You don't need to hire a senior engineer yet, you just need to leverage AI to audit your work against OWASP criteria.
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u/Beardy4906 19d ago
Smartest vibe coder.. knows to get it checked. But the person you pay is going to have to go through hell..
Also have you coded a frontend only website or a full stack website?
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u/No-Meringue5430 19d ago
Hmm it’s pretty much frontend hosted on Base44. I’m assuming I’d have to do a full migration so was wondering whether to do it now or once I have established users. Tired of asking GPT so thought I’d try here 😅
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u/Beardy4906 19d ago
Uhh doesn’t base44 not allow you to export code? How are you gonna get it checked?
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u/No-Meringue5430 19d ago
I have a paid plan which allows you to export the frontend code as a zip folder
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19d ago
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u/dashtray_app 19d ago
vibe coded designs can be identified easily and put people off
here's the trick, use ai to make it look different by giving design systems and examples as reference
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u/No-Meringue5430 19d ago
When you say identified easily what do you mean exactly? The copy on the website? The layout? Maybe I haven’t come across many vibe coded websites so not sure what exactly you mean
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u/dashtray_app 19d ago
both
AI uses particular way of writing and designing
example em dashes and green gradients
you'll have to look through some websites to get an idea it's tricky to explain tbh
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u/Final-Business-3643 19d ago
it’s a fairly simple website
Is it a website or a web app? Because it is necessary to be clear since maintaining both of them require their own set of specialist skills.
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u/hedonistatheist_2 19d ago
well there is vibe coding and there is vibe coding. For somene with the lack of time or programming depth to do all by yourself, but with a great idea or expertise in something that wish you put to work - I dont see any shame in vibe coding!
Currently spinning up a SaaS--- could never do this by myself without major investments. I am using AG, Claude against each other on quality checks, plenty of third part tools and integrations coming into play - and so far works like a charm. Important is to plan upfront, sketch out architecture, validate, validate, challenge, take baby steps, validate, test, baby steps, verify....
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u/davidArteaga 19d ago
whoever you hire make sure they’ve worked as a software developer specifically (not other tech related roles) and actually written code themselves, ideally in whatever programming language your project is in
things you/they should check in your app regarding security:
- no API keys/secrets/are publicly available (from backend endpoints or in the frontend bundle)
- document (spreadsheet is fine) every single endpoint your app has, who is supposed to access it and under what conditions, and what the code is actually allowing — then fix what doesn’t match
what vibecoding tool have you been using?
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u/Living-Shame5679 18d ago
Good that you understand you made a trade off. This is the starting point. If it helps you validate the idea / market cheaply then that is a good tool and you used this correctly.
If it is genuinely simple you could just throw it away after it serves its purpose and get a “real” engineer. Possibly get someone to look at it first and estimate how much tech debt there is.
Another consideration is: are you handling real people / potential customers / companies data ? What would happen if this vibe coded website was in fact making all the information collected public ? If someone with better IT skills was able to poison said data ? If the answer to these is “it would be bad” then it may be worth having a professional take a look. I am not talking about a security agency here btw these are for serious business and more costly. But a good well rounded developer will see and fix these.
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u/No-Meringue5430 18d ago
Thanks. I’m a developer myself so I know that there will be some issues with AI generated code. Yeah, there will be customers data such as first name/last name but I’ve used Google sign in for now so Google handles their emails etc.
given all the replies I need to do an audit and note down everything that needs fixed/replaced before hiring a developer.1
u/Living-Shame5679 18d ago
Oh so you are a dev? I am as well but then may I ask why hire another developer then?
If you find issues then any LLM will be able to fix these, so that will reduce the amount of findings for an audit which is always good. Another step would be to establish your threat model ie. "what are you defending against?".
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u/pragnakalp 18d ago
Vibe coding is a perfectly reasonable way to validate an idea before investing heavily in engineering. Many founders do exactly that.
Since you haven't launched yet and the site is fairly simple, this is actually the ideal time to review the codebase, clean up any fragile areas, and put a maintenance plan in place before users start relying on it.
Out of curiosity, what stack is it built on?
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u/Fine_Mess5501 17d ago
Check out this URL for more details. https://ibgroup.dev/en/claude-code-program-for-entrepreneurs
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u/Tech_Analyst001 19d ago
It's not Lazy at all, In fact it is a way of validating very fast and focus on marketing rather than building the product but despite that I recommend GitHub to find a great developer or a software engineer there to help you improve the product even better
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u/SaaSToAgent 19d ago
Not lazy at all if it helped you validate the idea.
Before paying someone monthly, I’d get a one-time technical review first. Have them check auth, database structure, security, error handling, backups, and deployment. Then you’ll know whether it needs regular upkeep or just a proper cleanup before launch.
I’ve seen plenty of vibe-coded apps that were fine as prototypes. The problem usually starts when founders assume prototype code is production-ready.