Why we only take on long-term software partnerships

For the past few years, Sandorian has operated quietly behind the scenes, partnering deeply with a select group of ambitious SaaS and fintech companies.

Today, we're making our positioning public. Not because something has changed, but because it's time to clearly articulate what Sandorian stands for:

We build software that lasts.

The problem with "dev shops"

Here's what typically happens when a growing SaaS company hires external developers:

Week 1-4: Onboarding. Learning the codebase. Understanding the domain.
Week 5-12: Productive work. Features ship. Everyone's happy.
Week 13: Project ends. Developers move on. Knowledge walks out the door.

Six months later, the codebase has grown. New features were bolted on. The architecture decisions made during that sprint? Nobody remembers why. The team that built it is gone.

This is the agency model. It optimizes for billing hours, not for outcomes. And it leaves companies with code that works today but becomes a liability tomorrow.

We've seen the aftermath. Codebases where three different teams made three different architectural choices. Payment integrations held together with duct tape. "Temporary" solutions that became permanent because nobody understood them well enough to replace them.

Why long-term matters

Software isn't a project. It's a living system that grows with your business.

The decisions you make at 1,000 users look very different at 100,000 users. The payment integration that worked for one country breaks when you expand to ten. The compliance requirements that didn't exist last year are now blocking your next funding round.

When we work with a company for years instead of months, we see these problems coming. We architected the system, so we know where the pressure points are. We don't need three weeks to "get up to speed" because we never left.

This is why we only take on a handful of partnerships at a time. We'd rather go deep with five companies than shallow with fifty.

What we actually do

We're not a dev shop. We're not a body shop. We're not an agency.

We operate as your external engineering team for the parts of your stack that require deep expertise:

Payments and billing infrastructure. We maintain the official Laravel packages for Mollie. We've built subscription systems, handled failed payments at scale, and navigated the edge cases that payment documentation never mentions.

Tax and regulatory compliance. VAT across 27 EU countries. E-invoicing requirements. KYC flows. PSD2. GDPR. The stuff that's boring until it blocks your launch.

Architecture for scale. Event sourcing. CQRS. Multi-tenant systems. The patterns that let you grow 10x without rewriting everything.

Infrastructure that doesn't break. Zero-downtime deployments. Disaster recovery. The difference between "we had an outage" and "we handled the traffic spike."

How we start

We don't pitch six-month roadmaps on the first call.

Most partnerships start small. A well-defined module. A specific integration. Something where we can deliver value quickly and you can evaluate whether we're the right fit.

If it works, we expand. We take on more of the system. We get deeper into the architecture. Over time, we become the team you call when something critical needs to be built right.

If it doesn't work, you have a completed module and no long-term commitment. No hard feelings.

What we don't do

We don't do fixed-price projects. Software development doesn't work that way, and pretending it does leads to cut corners and scope games.

We don't do "staff augmentation." Putting a body in a seat isn't a partnership. If you need warm bodies, there are cheaper options.

We don't take on work we're not confident we can deliver well. If your problem isn't in our wheelhouse, we'll tell you.

Why now

The European SaaS and fintech ecosystem is maturing. Companies that launched in 2020 are now facing scaling challenges that require real engineering, not just more features.

At the same time, the era of cheap money is over. Hiring a full in-house team for every capability isn't realistic. Companies need partners who can deliver senior-level work without the overhead of full-time hires.

We've spent years building expertise in exactly the areas where European software companies struggle most: payments, compliance, and systems that scale.

We're now selectively opening capacity for new long-term partnerships.

The deal

You own your company. You own your code. You own your IP.

We help you own your software, meaning it does what you need, scales when you grow, and doesn't become a liability you're afraid to touch.

If that sounds like what you need, let's talk.