LanceTek is one engineer. That is the point.
There is no account manager, no junior who picks up your project after the sale, and no offshore team. The person you speak to on the first call is the person who designs it, writes it, deploys it and answers the phone when it needs attention.
How I work
- Small, finished steps. I would rather ship a modest tool that works next month than a grand system that might work next year.
- Everything in writing. Scope, price, decisions and changes are written down and shared, so neither of us has to rely on memory.
- Your name on everything. Domains, accounts, repositories and hardware belong to your business. I am a guest with a key, not the landlord.
- Plain English. If I cannot explain why something is built the way it is without jargon, that is a sign it is over-built.
- Leave it maintainable. Mainstream tools, documented decisions and a runbook, so another competent engineer could take over without phoning me.
- Say no when it is the right answer. Sometimes the best advice is an existing product and a better spreadsheet. I will tell you.
Who it suits
Small businesses, roughly from a handful of people to a few dozen, where the owner or a manager can make decisions quickly and is close enough to the work to explain it. Firms that want to understand what they are buying, and keep it.
It suits less well if you need a large team on site, round-the-clock support, or a supplier with formal certifications for regulated procurement. I would rather say that now than after a proposal.
The stack
I keep to a short list of tools I know deeply. Each choice is written up in the Journal, with what it means for a client.
| Area | Tools | Why it is on the list |
|---|---|---|
| Applications | Python, TypeScript | Widely known; you will always find someone to maintain it. |
| Data | PostgreSQL, SQLite | Reliable, free, and does far more than most businesses will ever need. |
| Automation | n8n, Python workers | A visual tool for simple flows; code when the logic deserves tests. |
| AI models | Hosted APIs, local models | Chosen per job after testing on your documents, not by fashion. |
| Infrastructure | Linux, Docker, Proxmox | Plain, portable building blocks that run anywhere. |
| Access & backups | WireGuard / Tailscale, restic | Private remote access, encrypted off-site backups that get tested. |
| Monitoring | Uptime Kuma, Grafana | You find out from a dashboard, not from a customer. |
The homelab
Everything I recommend to a client runs here first, usually for months. The homelab is a small rack of second-hand business hardware where I break things deliberately so it does not happen on your systems: upgrades are rehearsed, backups are restored, and new tools earn their place before they appear in a proposal.