The Journal
The notes I would have wanted at fifteen.
Long-form notes on shipping production systems, scaling SaaS, hiring engineers, AI integration, and the engineering decisions behind Yashveer Labs — written by founder Yashveer Singh.
How Recruiters Can Read a GitHub Profile Like a Hiring Manager
A GitHub profile is a public record of what a developer builds, how they communicate through code, and whether they are actively practicing their craft. Recruiters who know how to read it can filter candidates faster and with more accuracy than any technical screen. Recruiters who skip it or misread it send the wrong candidates to hiring managers and waste everyone's time.
Software Costs and BudgetingHow Much Should a Senior Full Stack Developer Cost in 2026?
A senior full stack developer in 2026 costs between 85 and 200 dollars per hour in the US and Western Europe, between 40 and 90 dollars per hour in Eastern Europe, and between 25 and 65 dollars per hour in South Asia and Southeast Asia. The rate tells you the cost. The output and the fit tell you the value. These are not the same number.
Software Costs and BudgetingHow Much Does It Cost to Build a SaaS MVP? Real Numbers from Real Projects
A SaaS MVP costs between 15,000 and 120,000 dollars to build in 2026, depending on the scope, the team type, and how clearly the requirements are defined before development begins. The number that matters is not the quote you receive. It is the total cost to reach a point where a real user can pay and complete the core action without help.
Software Costs and BudgetingHow Founders Should Think About ROI Per Engineering Hour
ROI per engineering hour is not a metric you calculate in a spreadsheet. It is a mental model you apply before deciding what to build next. Engineering time is the most expensive and least recoverable resource in a startup. Founders who treat it as capacity to fill rather than capital to allocate consistently overbuild, undership, and run out of runway faster than they planned.
Software Costs and BudgetingHosting Cost Optimization: From Ten Thousand to a Million Users
Hosting cost optimization is the process of matching your infrastructure spend to your actual usage patterns at each stage of growth. The goal is not to run the cheapest infrastructure. The goal is to avoid paying for capacity you do not have and to avoid running out of capacity at the moment you need it most.
Hiring Developers, Freelancers, and AgenciesHiring Your First Engineering Manager: A Founder's Guide
An engineering manager is not a senior engineer with a calendar full of one on one meetings. They are a person whose output is team output, not individual code. Hiring the first one at the wrong time, or hiring a senior engineer who wants to stay technical, are the two most expensive mistakes a founder makes in the engineering org.
Hiring Developers, Freelancers, and AgenciesHiring Offshore: The Real Tradeoffs Beyond Cost
Offshore hiring means engaging developers or teams in regions where labor rates are significantly lower than your home market. The cost argument is obvious. What most founders underestimate are the structural tradeoffs: timezone gaps, communication overhead, quality variance, and the management load that shifts back to you when the developer is twelve time zones away.
Hiring Developers, Freelancers, and AgenciesHiring Mistakes That Founders Repeat Endlessly
Hiring mistakes in engineering are rarely about skills gaps on the candidate side. They are about process failures on the founder side that compound quietly over months. The founder who skips the trial, hires on vibes alone, and ignores early red flags does not do this out of carelessness. They do it under time pressure with incomplete information. This post names the patterns clearly so you stop repeating them.
Hiring Developers, Freelancers, and AgenciesHiring for Async First Engineering Cultures
Async first engineering cultures coordinate through written documents and asynchronous communication rather than meetings and real time chat. The engineers who thrive in this culture share specific traits. Strong writing. Self direction. Comfort with ambiguity. Willingness to surface blockers proactively. The teams that hire for these traits build async first cultures that work. The teams that hire on the same criteria as sync first cultures end up with engineers who suffer in the async environment.
Hiring Developers, Freelancers, and AgenciesHiring for an MVP vs Hiring for Scale: Different Engineers
Hiring for an MVP and hiring for scale are different problems. The MVP engineer ships fast, picks the right defaults, and avoids over engineering. The scale engineer runs systems under load, picks the right architecture for growth, and avoids the kind of mistakes that compound. Some engineers do both well. Most engineers do one well. The team that hires deliberately for the current stage moves faster than the team that hires for the title.
Hiring Developers, Freelancers, and AgenciesHire for Trajectory: Why Future Senior Developers Are Underpriced
Hiring for trajectory means hiring the engineer who is about to become senior rather than the one who already is. The current resume looks mid level. The behaviors and the work product look senior. The compensation is mid level because the market prices the title. The engineer becomes senior within twelve months. The team got senior work at mid level cost. The pattern is real and most teams miss it.
Security, Auth, and ComplianceHIPAA Compliance for Health SaaS: The Real Engineering Lift
HIPAA compliance for a health SaaS is the engineering and operational work required to handle protected health information legally and safely. The Business Associate Agreement with healthcare customers is the formal commitment. The engineering work supports the commitment. Encryption, audit logging, access controls, breach handling, and vendor management are the surfaces. The work is real but bounded. Most health SaaS can reach HIPAA readiness in three to six months.
Comparisons and Vendor DecisionsHex vs Mode vs Metabase for Analytics
Hex is the collaborative analytics platform for data teams that mix SQL, Python, and notebooks. Mode is the SQL first analytics tool for analyst heavy teams. Metabase is the self serve dashboard tool that lets non analysts query data. Each fits a specific team and analytical maturity. The right choice depends on who in the company will actually use the tool.
Web App and Frontend DevelopmentHeadless UI Libraries: Radix, Headless UI, Ariakit
Headless UI libraries provide component behavior and accessibility without imposing styling. Radix UI is the dominant choice in 2026 because shadcn/ui is built on it. Headless UI ships with Tailwind UI from the Tailwind team. Ariakit is the deepest in accessibility coverage. Each library handles the hard parts of building accessible interactive components so the team can focus on styling.
Cross Platform and Mobile DevelopmentGoogle Play Console for Founders: A No Nonsense Tour
Google Play Console is the platform for publishing and managing Android apps. The console handles signing, distribution, reviews, and analytics. The workflow has matured in the last few years but the surface is still wide. Most founders shipping their first Android app find the console intimidating. The actual workflow is small. The traps are specific. The first submission takes a week of preparation. Subsequent updates take hours.
Recruiter and Career PositioningGoing Independent: Freelancing vs Consulting vs Agency
Freelancing is selling your hours to multiple clients. Consulting is selling your expertise and judgment to a smaller number of clients at higher rates. Agency is selling a team's output to clients, with you as the leader. Each path fits a different person and a different stage of career. The wrong path for you wastes the years you spend on it. The right path compounds.
Recruiter and Career PositioningGoing From Founder Back to Engineer Without Losing Face
Going from founder back to engineer happens to most founders eventually. The startup did not work. The acquisition did not pay out. The funding did not materialize. The founder needs an engineering role and a stable income. The transition is common and the stigma is smaller than the founder fears. The story matters more than the outcome of the startup.
Recruiter and Career PositioningGoing From Engineer to Founder: A Practical Transition
Going from engineer to founder is a real career transition. The engineering skills are useful but not sufficient. The founder has to do sales, customer development, hiring, fundraising, and operations alongside or instead of engineering. The transition takes a year or two to find the shape. The engineers who prepare deliberately move faster than the ones who improvise.
Comparisons and Vendor DecisionsGithub Actions vs CircleCI vs Buildkite vs Drone
GitHub Actions is the dominant CI platform for teams on GitHub. CircleCI is the polished managed alternative. Buildkite is the hybrid platform with hosted control plane and your own runners. Drone is the open source self hosted option. Each fits a specific team and budget. The choice has more to do with the team's stack and operational appetite than with CI features.
DevOps, Deployment, InfrastructureGitHub Actions vs CircleCI vs Buildkite in 2026
GitHub Actions is the dominant CI platform in 2026 because GitHub is where most code lives. CircleCI is the polished managed alternative with a strong feature set. Buildkite is the hybrid platform where the control plane is hosted but the runners can be your own. Each fits a specific shape of team. Most should start with GitHub Actions and revisit if a specific need arises.
Backend, APIs, and System DesignGeospatial Data Done Right: PostGIS and Beyond
PostGIS is the Postgres extension that adds geometric and geographic types, spatial indexes, and spatial functions. The extension turns Postgres into a real geospatial database. The setup is one command. The performance is excellent on the queries most products need. Distance, contains, nearest, and routing all work. Most products that need location queries should use PostGIS rather than a specialized store.
Security, Auth, and ComplianceGDPR for SaaS Builders: What You Must Have on Day One
GDPR is the EU regulation that governs personal data of EU residents. Any SaaS with EU users has to comply regardless of where the company is based. The minimum is concrete. A privacy policy. A lawful basis for processing. Data subject rights implementation. A data processing agreement. A vendor inventory. A breach notification process. Each is small. The retrofit if you skipped it is a quarter of work.
Backend, APIs, and System DesignFull Text Search in PostgreSQL: Practical Patterns
Postgres full text search uses tsvector and tsquery to index and search text. The setup is mechanical. The performance is solid into the millions of rows for most queries. The features are sufficient for most SaaS search needs. Most teams reach for Elasticsearch or Algolia preemptively when Postgres full text would have served them for years. The patterns are small and worth learning.
Recruiter and Career PositioningFull Stack Developer Portfolios That Actually Land Interviews
A developer portfolio that lands interviews shows production work, explains the engineer's decisions, and signals depth in specific areas. The site loads fast. The projects are real. The case studies explain the work. The contact path is clear. Most portfolios miss most of these and blend into the background. The ones that stand out land the conversations.