Role frameworks & why SaaS isn't dead yet - The SaaS Show #8

Описание: Sjimi and Andreas on two things that keep coming up in client work: engineering teams with no visible growth paths, and the claim that AI will kill SaaS.

On the people side, madewithlove moved away from static role descriptions. Software engineers now sit on a spectrum from responsible developer to staff engineer, with clear dimensions they move along over time. CTOs in residence get a radar chart instead: team, product, technical. The point is that people can see where they are and what the next stretch looks like, without needing a promotion to feel progress.

It's often the first thing we set up at client companies too. Someone's overloaded? Usually nobody wrote down what their role actually covers.

On the SaaS side, they trace the historical cycle: bespoke software, then agencies, then SaaS products. Now everyone's building custom tools with Claude and Lovable. History suggests the maintenance reckoning is coming.

Sjimi's take: critical SaaS stays. Nobody's vibe-coding a 1Password. But for non-critical tools, the buy-vs-build equation has genuinely shifted. The real question is whether you want to maintain what you've built.

They also tried, really tried, to avoid AI as a topic. Five minutes.

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00:00 Intro
00:30 Structured role frameworks for engineering teams
02:00 Spectrums vs. static role descriptions
03:50 Deploying role frameworks at client companies
05:00 AI competency baked into role definitions
05:30 The SaaS apocalypse thesis
07:00 The historical cycle: bespoke, agency, SaaS, bespoke again?
07:30 Buy vs. build in the age of vibe coding
09:00 Has the software industry been spoiled?
09:15 Wrap-up