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Software is a living practice — four decades of building, breaking, and rebuilding things that matter.
— A working philosophy
Fred Lackey

Fredrick Lackey

Software Architect, Engineer & Leader
40 years in software · still building

Architect and engineer across the full stack — from legacy modernization to AI integration, from enterprise leadership to hands-on code. Forty years of compounding curiosity.

Note

Currently thinking about the intersection of AI tooling and developer autonomy. The question is not whether AI replaces developers — it does not — but how it reshapes the practice of building software at the architectural level.

AI Doesn't Replace Developers

On why the framing of AI-as-replacement misses the point entirely, and what forty years of tooling evolution actually teaches us.

“The best architects write code. The best leaders build things. The distinction is artificial.”
Areas of Practice

AI Integration

Building AI-augmented workflows and tooling for development teams

Architecture

System design, distributed patterns, and strategic technical decisions

Full-Stack

From database to interface — Node, .NET, React, and beyond

Leadership

Engineering teams, technical strategy, and organizational architecture

Legacy Modernization

Migrating critical systems forward without losing institutional knowledge

Developer Tooling

CLI tools, automation, and infrastructure for builder productivity

Spring Boot from .NET: A Practitioner's Notes

Migration notes for .NET developers entering the Spring Boot ecosystem. Practical observations, not advocacy.

Selected Career
2021 – Present

CISA / Department of Homeland Security

Cybersecurity infrastructure and systems for the federal government's lead cyber defense agency. Includes project work at Travelers Insurance on enterprise architecture and modernization of critical systems.

2006 – 2018

Spotless

Full-stack development and technical leadership

1994 – 1996

Arcada / Backup Exec

Early career systems engineering

Marginalia

AI projects in progress: Knowledge Builder and Career Coach — tools for synthesizing experience into navigable, queryable systems. More fragments to come.