What should a SaaS startup's engineering team do first for compliance?

A SaaS startup's engineering team should work in this order: know what data and systems you have, lock down access, find and fix vulnerabilities, keep logs and backups that work, and record evidence as you go. Choose a framework such as SOC 2 once a customer or deal asks, and map the work you already did to it.

Why not start with the framework?

Compliance frameworks describe outcomes, not a build order. Teams that begin by reading a control list often write policies for things they have not built. A more productive path is to build the basic controls that every framework wants, keep proof, and then map. The mapping step is cheap when the controls already exist.

The first question is usually commercial. A buyer's security review asks whether you have a SOC 2 report. The AICPA, which sets the standards, says SOC reports are issued by CPAs, and that a SOC 2 examination can cover security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality or privacy. Your auditor, not your tooling vendor, issues the report.

What is the first priority?

Know what you hold and where. Write down the customer data you store, which systems process it, which third parties touch it, and who can reach each. A spreadsheet is enough at first. Every later control, from access reviews to breach response, depends on this list.

For companies serving UK or EU customers, there is a legal reason too. The ICO describes the security principle as processing personal data with appropriate technical and organisational measures, and says your processors must have them as well. You cannot show that if you cannot list your processors.

What comes second: access?

Make identity the centre. Use single sign-on for the tools that support it, require multi-factor authentication everywhere, give engineers the least access that lets them work, and remove access on the day someone leaves. Production data access should be rare, logged and approved. Review the list of who has what each quarter and keep the review as evidence.

What about vulnerabilities and dependencies?

Early-stage products are mostly other people's code. Scan your dependencies and containers in CI, fix critical issues on a defined timeline, and record exceptions with a reason and a date. NIST's Secure Software Development Framework, SP 800-218, recommends a core set of high-level secure development practices that you can fit into whatever development process you use. It is a useful, neutral list to adopt in small steps rather than all at once.

Keep an inventory of components, such as an SBOM, so that when a new vulnerability is announced you can answer in minutes whether you ship the affected library.

Which operational basics get asked about?

• Logging of authentication and administrative actions, kept somewhere an intruder in a workload cannot erase.
• Backups that you have restored at least once, with the result written down.
• A written incident plan that names who decides, who talks to customers and how you preserve evidence.
• Change control: pull requests reviewed, protected branches, and a record of what went to production.

How do you keep evidence without a compliance team?

Collect proof as a side effect of normal work. Pull request approvals, CI scan results, ticket history, access review exports and restore test notes already exist. Store them in one place with dates. When an auditor asks for a sample, you pull from the folder instead of reconstructing history. Compliance automation tooling can gather part of this for you from your systems, but the controls still have to be real.

When do you pick SOC 2, ISO 27001 or something else?

Let demand decide. If US enterprise buyers ask for SOC 2, start there. If European customers or tenders ask for ISO 27001, start there. Many controls overlap, so work done for one carries to the other. Be careful in marketing: say you are working toward a report only if you are, and never say you are certified or compliant before an auditor says so.

What to do

1. Build a data and systems inventory, including processors.
2. Enforce SSO and MFA, least access and fast offboarding.
3. Add dependency and container scanning to CI, with a fix timeline and exception log.
4. Centralise logs, test a restore, and write a one-page incident plan.
5. Save evidence in one dated folder as work happens.
6. Pick the framework a real customer asks for and map your controls to it.
7. For a quick dependency baseline, Safeguard's free scan at gold.safeguard.sh/scan covers up to 100 dependencies in the browser.

Quick check

Sources

• AICPA and CIMA: SOC 2 and SOC services
• ICO: A guide to data security
• NIST SP 800-218: Secure Software Development Framework

Last reviewed: 18 October 2026.