Product engineering
Turn a validated idea or stalled roadmap into a focused product that is ready for real users.
You leave with
A launched, observable product and a codebase prepared for the next release.
Founder-led software studio · Guadalajara / worldwide
Production software for teams moving at AI speed.
We build MVPs, rescue AI-generated codebases, and provide fractional CTO leadership — then leave you with tested, documented systems your team can own.
Prefer to talk it through?Book a 30-minute call
- Experience
- 10+ years
- Public systems
- 27 listed
- Working model
- EN · ES
Delivery contract
Software that survives handoff
Ship in usable increments
Working software and weekly demos keep decisions grounded in the product.
Build the evidence in
Tests, CI, monitoring, and documentation are part of delivery, not an afterthought.
Keep your team in control
Clear architecture, recorded decisions, and a codebase your team can run without us.
Direct senior access · Clear scope · No black box
Ways to work together
One senior partner for the moment your software gets serious.
Start with the pressure you are under. We shape the engagement around the outcome, then make scope, evidence, and ownership explicit.
Explore this engagement
Vibe-code rescue
Stabilize an AI-generated prototype before hidden debt becomes an outage, rewrite, or failed handoff.
You leave with
An audit, risk-ranked plan, regression coverage, and a maintainable production baseline.
Fractional CTO
Add experienced technical judgment to architecture, roadmap, hiring, due diligence, and delivery.
You leave with
Decisions tied to business milestones, with a team that knows what to build next and why.
Agent and AI systems
Design MCP tools, retrieval systems, evaluations, and agent workflows that fit the way your team already works.
You leave with
A useful AI capability with explicit boundaries, evidence, and operating costs.
The evidence loop
AI speed is useful only when the work stays legible.
Our delivery system keeps intent, implementation, behavior, and handoff connected. That is how fast work remains accountable.
Frame
Define the product decision, constraints, success criteria, and smallest useful release.
Build
Ship narrow vertical slices with weekly demos and direct access to the senior engineer doing the work.
Prove
Test behavior, trace failures, watch production signals, and keep evidence beside every important claim.
Transfer
Document architecture and decisions so your team owns the system instead of renting our memory.
Tests · CI · Cairntrace · Hitspec · Monitoring · Runbooks
Selected work
Not a pitch deck. A live body of work.
A small selection from 27 listed public deployments and a broader open-source workshop. Open the work, inspect it, and decide for yourself.
Explore all projects and tools
Who you work with
Senior judgment stays in the room.
The Lacanians is an independent software studio led by Abdul Hamid Achik — not a staffing layer between you and the work.
You work directly with the person shaping the architecture, reviewing every release, and translating product pressure into technical decisions. Based in Guadalajara and working worldwide in English and Spanish.
Field notes
Writing from inside the work.
Practical notes on AI-native delivery, software architecture, technical leadership, and what happens after the demo.
AI & Development5 min read
Looks Correct Is Not Is Correct: How BlankCode Grades Real Code in a Real Sandbox
BlankCode is AI code practice that never forgets how you actually learn: fill-in-the-blank exercises on real code, graded by executing real tests in a real sandbox across six languages, rescheduled by spaced repetition based on exactly what you got wrong.
Engineering5 min read
Multi-Tenant Postgres Done Right: Three Rules From Building Cartographer
Cartographer is evidence-first visibility into how AI search engines see a brand, built on multi-tenant Postgres. Three rules we now treat as non-negotiable: the RLS policy is the authority, verify migrations by rebuilding and diffing, and compare timestamps at the precision your data actually supports.
Engineering5 min read
Disposable by Design: Ephemeral Cloud Environments From a Docker Compose File
Chalupa spins up short-lived, real DigitalOcean environments straight from the Docker Compose file a project already has. The interesting decisions are about boundaries: what gets exposed, what survives teardown, and which operations are allowed to be irreversible.
Bring the messy version.
A half-built MVP, a fragile AI codebase, or a roadmap without technical leadership — we will help you find the next defensible move.