Gene Lemcool

I started programming in 1983 on a Commodore VIC-20 and have been doing it professionally since the early 1990s. In the decades since, the tools changed completely and the fundamentals didn't: know what the system is actually supposed to do, build it so the next person can follow it, and assume you'll be the next person.

Before software, I served in the U.S. Navy as a Fire Controlman, including qualification on the Phalanx Close-In Weapon System and duty with Submarine Group Nine. Weapons systems teach you a specific lesson about software: correctness isn't a quality attribute; it's the whole job. Software rarely carries those stakes, but the habit stuck.

Since 2015 I have been the sole architect, developer, and DBA for a production SaaS platform — roughly a million lines of code, maintained continuously by one person. Not a team of one by accident; a team of one by design, because the system was built to be held in one head.

Lemcool Enterprises, LLC was formed in 2022 to do that same work for other organizations.