Software Engineer · .NET · AWS · Full-Stack
Steve Ackley
12+ years designing and shipping enterprise-grade software. Core stack is C# / .NET on AWS, with deep experience across full-stack, cloud architecture, and technical leadership.
last push undertow-engine· 2h ago
About
I build pragmatic systems with a strong bias toward maintainability, delivery discipline, and clean architecture. Most of my professional work has lived in the Microsoft stack, but I am increasingly applying the same engineering bar to modern TypeScript and React-based products.
The most important person in my life is Brooke. She is brilliant, kind, and genuinely one of the most beautiful people I have ever known, inside and out. She pushes me to be better, keeps me grounded, and makes every day worth showing up for. We spend our time hiking, catching movies, and generally finding ways to make the most of wherever life takes us.
Outside of the two of us, I am probably tinkering with something, going down a rabbit hole about aliens, at a Lodge meeting, or hunting the perfect espresso pull.
Career Timeline
May 2026 - Present
Founder & Head of Software @ Qavren Solutions LLC
Founded a Connecticut software company and run product and engineering as one of two Managing Members. Maintain a roster of 25 products and experiments, 8 of them live, on a shared auth, data, and release platform I built (Keycloak, Postgres, .NET 10, GitHub Actions).
Dec 2020 - Present
Staff / Senior Software Engineer @ Lockheed Martin
Spearheaded IETM development for the F-16 fighter aircraft (web-based) and HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter (desktop, disconnected). Led teams of up to 10 engineers and authored coding standards adopted by 30+ engineers.
Jul - Dec 2020
Software Architect @ Flexi Software
Sole principal engineer on a cloud-hosted SaaS license authorization platform. Produced complete technical specs and coordinated a 15-engineer team across 3 locations and 2 countries.
Sep 2016 - Jul 2020
Sr. Specialist, SE & Integration @ Sila Solutions Group
Embedded consulting engineer at Lockheed Martin / Sikorsky Aircraft on the HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter IETM. Introduced agile practices that drove a 15% throughput improvement.
May 2014 - Sep 2016
.NET Developer @ Emerson Process Management
Owned the Catapult EAM platform for oil and gas reliability clients. Engineered a RESTful Web API layer deployed to every installation and architected a KPI analytics application.
Jan 2013 - Jun 2014
Programmer / Analyst @ SMC Partners
Healthcare consulting. Replaced an end-of-life VB6 QA auditing system with a modern ASP.NET application at Connecticare. Rationalized SSRS reporting at Hometown Health, cutting the report estate by 40%.
2012 - 2013
Early Career
Help desk and system analyst roles at Northeast Utilities and Housing System Solutions while completing a BS in Computer Science at Central Connecticut State University.
Interests & Hobbies
Tinkering & Tech
Building and breaking things to figure out how they work.
Camping & Hiking
Getting off the grid. Mountains, trails, and good company.
Movies
Sci-fi, action, and anything with a great story.
Aliens & The Unknown
There is more out there than most people are willing to admit.
Freemasonry
Active Lodge member. Brotherhood, tradition, and service.
Fitness (WHOOP)
Data-driven health and recovery tracking.
Cars
Passion for performance and automotive design.
Craft Coffee
Single-origin beans, espresso, and pour-overs.
Fragrances
Curating a personal collection of signature scents.
Skills
Certifications
Arcitura Certified SOA Architect
Arcitura Education
Microsoft Technology Associate
Microsoft (MCPS - Software Development)
Microsoft Backend
Core expertise
- C# / .NET 10
12+ years across ASP.NET Core, Web API, console, and worker services.
- ASP.NET Core / Web API
REST APIs, OData, SignalR, middleware pipelines.
- SQL Server
Complex T-SQL, stored procedures, schema design, performance tuning.
- SSIS
ETL pipeline design and execution for data warehouse workloads.
- SSAS
OLAP cube design and MDX queries for BI and analytics platforms.
- WPF / XAML
Rich desktop application development on the Windows stack.
- ML.NET
Machine learning pipelines within the .NET ecosystem.
- Entity Framework Core
Code-first migrations, complex LINQ, query optimization.
Microsoft Cloud & DevOps
Core expertise
- Azure Cloud
App Service, Functions, Service Bus, Key Vault, AKS, Storage.
- Azure DevOps
Pipelines, Boards, Repos, Artifacts. Full lifecycle management.
- Docker / Containers
Multi-stage builds, Compose, container registries.
- Kubernetes (AKS)
Deployment management, Helm charts, monitoring.
- Jenkins
Pipeline configuration, build automation, plugin management.
- GitLab CI/CD
Pipelines, runners, environment deployments.
Frontend
- Angular
Primary professional frontend framework across multiple enterprise roles.
- TypeScript
Strict typing, generics, utility types across Angular and React.
- React / Next.js
App Router, RSC, hooks. Newest addition. Used on this site.
- CSS / SCSS
Component styles, BEM, responsive layouts, animations.
- Bootstrap
Grid system, component library, responsive utilities.
- Tailwind CSS
Newer skill. Utility-first styling picked up on personal projects.
Data & BI
- SQL / PostgreSQL
Complex queries, schema design, performance tuning across databases.
- Tableau
Dashboard design, calculated fields, data source management.
- Data Warehousing
Dimensional modeling, star/snowflake schemas, ETL design.
- SSRS
Paginated reports, subscriptions, parameterized reporting.
Architecture & Leadership
- Clean Architecture
Domain-driven design, SOLID principles, dependency inversion.
- SOA / Microservices
Service composition, contracts, and governance. Arcitura certified.
- Technical Leadership
Architecture reviews, mentoring, RFC processes, team direction.
- Automated Testing
Unit, integration, and E2E: xUnit, NUnit, Playwright, Jasmine.
Projects
8 products in production
SquareLog
Live · squarelog.app
Legal-evidence RAG for people representing themselves in family court: a daily SitRep log, retrieval over Connecticut Title 46b, and court-ready exports.
StackAlchemist
Live · stackalchemist.app
Turns a plain-English brief into a compilable .NET, Next.js, and Postgres SaaS repository. A compile-and-repair loop keeps regenerating until it builds.
Synap
Live · getsynap.app
Two-minute professional lessons every day, evaluated by AI and built around the streak. Paid subscriptions run through Stripe on the web while the mobile apps go through the stores.
Roast and Resolve
Live · roastandresolve.com
A free, brutally honest AI roast of your resume, website, or dating profile, then a paid report that fixes what got roasted.
Throughline
Live · career.qavrensolutions.com
Counts the credentials that real job postings ask for, and what each one costs to get. No database, no auth: everything is precomputed into committed JSON.
TrailTold
Live · trailtold.com
Walk the trail and the app tells you what happened here: GPS-triggered narration at every waypoint, from curated history packs.
HaulCall
Live · haulcall.app
The backstage crew for Whatnot sellers: every sale captured live, sorted, matched to postage, and verified by QR scan before it ships.
ReCharacter
Live · recharacter.us
Helps veterans build a mental-health-based discharge-upgrade petition under the military's liberal-consideration policy. A paperwork problem with a 15-year clock.
14 repos, ordered by last commit
Live · refreshed just nowundertow-engine
Python · 2h ago
A standalone Python microservice for automated short-form video compositing and headless social media deployment. Built with FastAPI, Celery, MoviePy, and Playwright.
StackAlchemist
C# · 5h ago
StackAlchemist transmutes natural language into deployable SaaS architectures. An AI-driven orchestrator combining a Next.js/Supabase frontend with a proprietary "Swiss Cheese" generation engine. We guarantee zero hallucinations by automatically executing a CI/CD build check before delivering a fully customized, production-ready .NET 10 backend
Kairis
TypeScript · 6h ago
Kairis is a documentation-first fintech project for a non-custodial crypto trading system built around disciplined execution, visible risk controls, and mode-based trading workflows.
GhostCrab
Kotlin · 7h ago
Native iOS, iPadOS, Mac Catalyst, and Android client for OpenClaw Gateway — manage self-hosted AI agents, Ollama, and LM Studio backends from your phone, tablet, or Mac.
recharacter
TypeScript · 7h ago
Self-help web app helping US veterans upgrade less-than-honorable discharges via mental-health / liberal-consideration petitions.
syzm
TypeScript · 7h ago
ML-driven payment recovery platform for streaming businesses.
opencode-amplifier
JavaScript · 2d ago
Contract-governed OpenCode config that amplifies constrained LLMs (Sonnet 4.5, GPT-5.1, cheap corp models) into near-frontier coding agents: multi-agent pipeline with per-agent models, independent test-gen + locked tests, golden-pattern corpus, cross-model review, and an eval harness.
axon-main
C# · 2d ago
Qavren-Swarm
C# · 4d ago
Local MCP server that orchestrates ephemeral, hardened Docker coding agents (claude-code / local OpenAI-compatible / Anthropic) against a read-only workspace copy, returning a reviewable git diff. .NET 10, Windows + WSL2 Docker.
OmniSift
C# · 6d ago
podlinkfixer
TypeScript · 1w ago
Paste any podcast URL, get the same show/episode on every other platform. Cloudflare Worker + KV + Hono.
myelix-community
C# · 1w ago
Public Myelix client, sensor ingestion pipeline, and open integration surface.
ClusterOrbit
Dart · 1w ago
sokode
Code · 2w ago
Writing
Latest from the blog
View all postsThe plaque problem: introducing TrailTold
Trail history today is a weathered cast-aluminum plaque, a shallow official app, or nothing. TrailTold plays narrated history at the spot it happened, triggered by GPS as you walk. Here's what it is, how it's built, and exactly how far along it is.
Read more →TaleBound, day one: last-write-wins rows instead of CRDTs
I started an offline-first travel journal today. The interesting engineering bet is the sync layer: hand-rolled row sync with last-write-wins and visible conflict copies, not CRDTs. Here's the product, the design, and why the fancier option was the wrong one.
Read more →Astro 7 ships Vite 8, and Rolldown ate my Tailwind import
I expected the Astro 6 to 7 bump to bring Vite 6. It brought Vite 8, which bundles with Rolldown instead of esbuild, which resolves `@import "tailwindcss"` as a filesystem path. One ENOENT, one plugin swap, done.
Read more →Connect
Open To
Contract & Freelance
Short or long-term engagements on challenging .NET / AWS projects alongside my day job.
Side Projects
Open to interesting technical problems and collaborations outside of Lockheed work.
Consulting
Architecture reviews, technical design, and advisory work in the Microsoft stack.
Resume
Full work history, certifications, and references available on request. View the interactive version or save a PDF copy.