You built it. Now let's get it ready for everyone who shows up.
You shipped a working product with AI coding tools, on your own. Real users arrive and the product enters its next stage, and that stage goes better with a senior engineer you can just ask. I am that engineer. You keep building, you keep the repo, and you always know what to deal with first.
// Exposed API key in client code
const API_KEY = "sk-1234567890abcdef";
// No error handling
async function fetchData() {
const data = await fetch("/api/data");
return data.json();
}
// Security vulnerability
app.get('/user/:id', (req, res) => {
db.query(`SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ${req.params.id}`);
});
// Hardcoded credentials
const dbConfig = {
host: "production.db.example.com",
user: "admin",
password: "supersecret123",
database: "users"
};
// No input validation
function processUserInput(input) {
eval(input); // Dangerous!
}
// Insecure cookie
document.cookie = "authToken=abc123; path=/";Getting a product out the door was the hard part
You went from an idea to a running product, by yourself, with a set of tools that did not exist a few years ago. Five years ago that took a funded team and a year. I have watched founders do in a weekend what used to be a roadmap, and I love when clients do that.
So this page is not going to tell you what your code gets wrong. Every codebase that meets real users hits the same stage, teams of ten included, and it has nothing to do with how the code got written. It has to do with the fact that people are now using it.
What that stage usually looks like
Different products, same handful of questions. If you recognise two or three of these, you are exactly where I expect you to be.
It held at ten users and it is creaking at a thousand
The query that was instant on your laptop is now the slow page. Somewhere there is a loop doing a database call, and it never mattered until this week.
Every new feature breaks two old ones
The codebase has grown past what the model can hold in one go, so the answers get vaguer and you ship slower every week.
Deploys got scary
There is no test you trust, no way back if it goes wrong, and Friday afternoon is now off limits. That is a solvable problem, and it is mostly boring plumbing.
Someone real is about to look at it
A first serious customer, a security questionnaire, a partner asking about uptime and backups. You want to answer those properly rather than hopefully.
A senior engineer you can ask
Three levels, monthly, cancel whenever it stops being useful. Every one of them starts from the same idea: you are the one building this, and you should have someone senior to ask before you commit to a direction.
You hit a wall, you send me the problem, you get a senior answer back the same day.
- WhatsApp and async, whenever it comes up
- An answer the same day, in plain language
- No scheduling and no ceremony. Nothing to book, nothing to prepare
- Paste the code, paste the error, paste the plan. All three are fair game
Good when:
You are shipping fine and you mostly need someone to check your thinking before you go down a road.
Everything above, and I read your codebase regularly instead of waiting for you to bring me a problem.
- Everything in Ask Anything
- I read the codebase on a regular rhythm
- What is going to bite you next, and in what order
- Written down, so you always know what to fix first
Good when:
Users have arrived, the list of things you are worried about is getting long, and you want it ranked.
Everything above, and we sit down together and work through the hard parts.
- Everything in Eyes on the Code
- Regular pairing sessions
- The migration, the refactor, the bug nobody can reproduce. Together
- You still drive and you still write it. I am next to you while you do
Good when:
There is a piece of work in front of you that you would rather not do alone, and you want to come out of it knowing how it was done.
Start at any level and move between them month to month. Most people find out which one they need after the first conversation.
How we work
Light on process, because you have a product to build.
We talk
You show me what you built and where it is starting to hurt. Half an hour, no slides.
I read the code
Read access to the repo, and you get back an honest picture of where the product stands.
You keep shipping
Questions get answered the day you ask them. You do not save them up for a meeting.
You get better
Everything I work out about your product, I hand back to you. That is the whole point.
A few things that stay true whatever we agree
The product is yours. The repo is yours. Nothing moves into my account
You write the code. I do not write it for you, and I do not want to
Keep your tools. Cursor, Claude Code, Lovable, Replit, v0, whatever you like
Straight answers, including the ones you were hoping not to hear
Who you would be talking to
I am David. I build with these tools every day, which is why I am not the senior engineer who thinks AI-written code is beneath him.
David Wippel
Twenty years of this
I have been building web applications since the early days of the internet, through to cloud-native architectures. Most of the problems you are about to hit, I have hit.
I led development at agencies
Complex applications, real deadlines, other people's money. That is where you learn which corners cost you later and which ones never do.
I run my own products
I have built SaaS products from nothing and I operate them, including Glasswise. I know what it is like when the thing you built is the thing that pays you.
I build with AI tools daily
I prompt, I review what comes back, I ship it. I am on the same side of the tooling as you, which means we can skip the part where I try to talk you out of how you work.
A real company
Prompt to Production runs under Essential Code GmbH in Austria. Real imprint, real invoices, someone you can actually reach.
Is this the right thing for you?
It fits some situations and it does not fit others. Here is the honest version, so neither of us wastes a call.
- You have a product that works and people are using it, or they are about to
- You want to keep building it yourself and get better at it while you do
- You would rather ask someone than guess and find out in production
- A senior engineer on tap costs you less than a wrong architectural turn
- You want someone to take the whole thing off your hands and build it for you. That is a development contract, and I can point you at people who do it well
- You need a pair of hands in the repo shipping your backlog to a deadline. Same answer, and I will say so on the call
- The product is still an idea and there is no code yet. Go and build it, then come back
- You are working in machine learning research or on chain infrastructure. Not my field, and you deserve someone whose field it is
Questions people ask
The ones that come up before the first call.
Tell me what you built
Half an hour, a link to your product, and whatever is currently keeping you up. I am curious about the thing you made, and by the end of the call you will know whether I am useful to you.
Grab half an hour
Pick a slot that suits you. Bring the product, not a pitch.