How to scale the engineering team at a SaaS company

This week’s guest on the SaaS Revolution Show is John Doran,
Director of Engineering at Phorest Salon Software, a cloud-based
management solution and marketing suite for salons and
spas. 


Born and bred in Dublin, John has always loved building product
and iteratively improving it. Phorest is the first SaaS product
he was involved with, jumping in from professional services.
which he found far more unsatisfactory. When John joined Phorest
four years ago, there were only 5-6 engineers who all reported to
Ronan Perceval, CEO and Founder of Phorest. 


Two years into his tenure, John became the Director of
Engineering. For a while, he continued operating under the flat
structure he inherited but quickly that began to cause problems.
Individually siloed and not in sync, the engineering development
suffered. John and his team began to experiment with changes and
are on a journey of continuous improvement.


Listen on to learn:


The warning signs that the engineering team will need to be
restructured

One change John and the Phorest team implemented

How John keeps the engineering team aligned



John Doran will be one of many speakers we are bringing to
SaaStock 19 to talk about engineering and product. He will be
joined by Des Traynor co-founder of Intercom, Janna Bastow,
Co-founder Mind the product, Dan Martell, 5-time founder and
chief instigator at the SaaS Academy and many others. Use code
IRINA20 to get a ticket at the best possible price.


 


 


 


Check out the other ways SaaStock is helping SaaS founders move
their business forward: 


SaaStock Europe: 14-15 October 2025 | Dublin, Ireland
Book you tickets: https://saastock-europe.com/tickets/


SaaStock USA 2025: April 2026 | Austin, Texas
Join the waitlist: https://saastock-usa.com/


SaaStock Founder Membership: A private members group of B2B SaaS
founders between $100K - $10M ARR who are committed to growth and
helping others (https://www.saastock.com/founder-membership/)


SaaStock Local: Monthly meet-ups in cities all around the world,
bringing together SaaS enthusiasts and experts to discuss the
most pressing topics in SaaS (https://local.saastock.com/home)