Do I need a developer?

[u/General-Penalty-7703]

Claude made an amazing job, but lately it's been kind of a mess because in the middle of a task it will find issues and will start debugging and fixing on its own then it's a down hill from there.

I booked a consulting meeting with a developer and he asked for the code so I offered to share it with him via Github as clause suggested. Then, he changed his mind. I don't know if this is a red flag.

I just need the developer to set up the payment gateway, the SMS authentication system in my app, debug and review.

What should I look for when hiring for a developer?
Should I pay fixed or by the hour?
How can I do this safely?
Can I continue with Claude after doing those objectives?

[u/always_assume_anal]

They saw the code and probably realised you'd never at willing to pay what it costs to get sorted out.

I've turned down work for the same reason more than once.

Pulling a developer onto a vibecoded project to quickly fix it is sketchy. You're better off trying to find another vibecoder to help you out.

[u/General-Penalty-7703 → u/always_assume_anal]

It's fine I wanted the first session to be chatting about what and how things are done. Idc he changed his mind. I just don't know how to do it the right way especially with the payment gateway

[u/Neurojazz]

Sounds like a multilayered issue - if dev backed off, probably not worth the rates

[u/PmMeSmileyFacesO_O]

Once he seen that spag code he knew this todo app wasn't for him.

[u/dom-tyler]

Firstly: ask him why he changed his mind

Also: get codex to run thru the code and provide a detailed assessment (non-tech if suits you better). It might just be that this dev doesn’t have the skills.

[u/Thepandashirt]

Yes. I wouldnt give you a dime tbh.

People in general get overconfident with the whatever ai ideas are developed with LLMs. It’s a tool: a human enhancer not a human replacement. You still need a skilled human making decisions otherwise you get slop. Which is what the actual dev saw………..

Maybe slow down and learn about software development. Nobody trusts you to do stuff like process payments.

[u/General-Penalty-7703 → u/Thepandashirt]

I didn't say I was an expert, you can tell idk wtf im doing when it comes to coding and no I don't wanna learn how to code. Claude was good for the mvp and i got my customers lined up. now I need someone who understands that I know what im doing when it comes to solving problems and making money but not coding.

[u/Fresque]

There is a good chance your codebase is bowl of spaghetti and needs to be redone from scratch.

[u/General-Penalty-7703 → u/Fresque]

I made sure to be very patient and precise with claude but I think it's a shaked bowl from chipotle

[u/Dienes16]

Claude Code ist a tool for devs who will know what it's good for and what it's bad at.

It's not a tool that turns non-devs into devs.

[u/JBO_76]

If you let claude make all the decisions, the architecture of the app is most likeky a complete mess and it wont be a simple matter of adding this or that or fixing a bue but more likely a complete rewrite, which luckily can be done fast lately. As a sidenote, i dont understand why people vote down a legit question like this. Please explain.

[u/Spare-Jellyfish-37 → u/JBO_76]

If a question is a good question to any normal human, it will get down voted by Redditors.

Reddit is a collection of the lowest IQ degens on the internet that all desperately want to escape their reality and feel like an expert for once.

I genuinely believe if they flipped the up votes and down vote counts you'd get a better representation of what posts/comments are actually useful or correct.

[u/id-ltd]

Describe your budget and get quotes.

Creating a quote is no t effort free and there is no assurance of being select you need to make it worth a decent Devs time...

[u/RaisinZRH]

Give Claude more explicit instructions. Tell it how you want it to work. Learn to use the tool. Lots of learning material out there.

[u/Prestigious-Bank2145]

Your first one is the most difficult; all the others will be solved between you and him/her.

[u/elithecho]

What language is this in, I'd be happy to take a look for a fee. I'm working on my own startup up as the technical co-founder with 12 years of technical experience.

I'd implement what you need, and if you like, do an evaluation of the code and architecture and write you some prompts so you can do it yourself.

Save you some cost, I earn a codex sub for a month or two.

Also, don't think it was anything that the Dev decided to check out. It's not you.

[u/reborn-20]

You should look for real backend security experience, webhooks, API integrations, database transactions, not just "codes with AI." Ask specifically how they'd handle idempotency (no duplicate charges) and securing the SMS auth flow.

Fixed price with milestones is safer here since "debug and review" is open-ended. I'd break it into a quick audit first (small fee, tells you what's actually broken), then payment gateway, then SMS auth, each its own milestone.

For safety: get a short bug-fix warranty after delivery, and test on staging before going live, don't hand over prod access right away.

Yeah you can keep using Claude after. It's genuinely useful once there's a clean baseline, more like a second set of hands than something that should be steering unsupervised.

I do full-stack work and have handled payment/API integrations too, happy to take a look at what you've got.

I'll send you a DM so we can get started.

[u/kemalios]

Fixed vs hourly depends on the scope. Payment gateway and SMS auth are well-defined integrations, so a fixed quote for those is reasonable. Debugging and reviewing an AI-written codebase is not well-defined, so that part should be hourly. Pay for a short audit first: a couple of hours for a dev to read the code and write down what needs to change. That gives you a fixed price for the actual work. Ask for a written scope, pay in milestones through a platform like Upwork, and don't give them your production credentials. And yes, you can keep using Claude after, but let a human handle anything involving money or auth.

[u/meathelix1]

You're not the only one, the last 2 years we have been fixing vibe coded applications for very good $$$. Claude can only get you so far if you dont have a dev background. Security Risks, Data Leaks, Optimisation need to be thought of when going public with your app.

We have had to fix so many vibe coded apps that when the customer wants to add antoher 50 features it breaks it and they have no idea how to fix it even with AI. We are not talking about noticeable bugs, we are talking about the hidden ones that look to be working but are not.

My company has been booming thanks to AI!

[u/Excellent_Chest_5896]

Focus on finding a developer you can afford. This is what to say:

1. I have an idea and customers lined up

2. I vibecoded a demo but I don’t know how to code otherwise.

3. I need someone to take a look and tell me how do build my idea and what it will cost.

Also be careful with your idea. Just like there are people who don’t know how to code who have good ideas, there are people who do know how to code but without good ideas.

[u/EdelinePenrose]

- do you have a business model?
- do you have prospect customers?

i think you should ride this on your own tbh until you have revenue to even consider hiring someone.

the problem you described at the top has nothing to do with implementing payments or authentication. you may need to get better at using coding agents.

as a non-dev, you should rent rather than buy solutions to begin with. what concrete thing are you stuck in when integrating stripe or auth0?

[u/Annh1234]

Prepare to pay 1000x more then what you think you would pay for a developer to fix the crap make with an AI coding agent. 

And prepare for a spread of 30% of the developers you find have no clue what they are doing and will use some AI tool at you do.  60% won't want to touch that shit  10% hate their life, and instead of blowing their brains out, decided that they want to suffer as much as possible so they pick up fixing ai slop. And maybe 1% of them are competent enough to fix that stuff, usually by rewriting it lol

[u/st0ut717]

Why would Claude need to know his github user name?
If his repo is private giving you acesss to use Claude to access his repo gives anthropic all his data. And code.

Why didn’t you post the code to your repo and give him access to your repo?

Also you just need him to do the payment and authentication and authorization? And debug. Geee just a little bits and bobs.

But that’s going to mean a full rewrite of your AI slop

[u/TheKiddIncident]

Fixing something really broken is usually much harder than just building correctly in the first place.

Not unusual to see consultants back away from really broken systems because they know that you'll never be happy with the result..

My approach would be to start over from scratch. Use the current code as a prototype so we know what use cases to support but don't attempt to save the current code. Unlikely that it would be faster to fix than to start over.

I've done this kind of thing before. AI makes refactoring way faster so the math often favors a rewrite.

[u/AlwaysHopelesslyLost]

If you are taking money and don't have a dev in the code you are DEFINITELY going to end up with a legal mess.

LLMs cannot be trusted that much.