Technical Leadership, Software Craftsmanship
Kinetic Codes helps startups and scale-ups build reliable systems and high-performing engineering teams.
About Me
Hello, my name is
Lucas Gray
About Me
With almost 20 years building software products and leading engineering teams, I bring deep technical expertise and practical leadership to complex challenges. I specialize in system architecture, team building, and 0-to-1 scaling.
I work as a player-coach team lead, fractional principal engineer, or technical advisor—embedded with your team for as long as you need.
Based in Madison, WI 🦡
Engagement Examples
A sampling of challenges I've helped teams solve
Engineering Team Scale-up
Nascent telehealth company lacked engineering rigor, needed to balance cleanup from a rushed launch with necessary features
Established ways of working, PR review process, QA, robust asynchronous processing, and software delivery process
Company scaled to 8-figure ARR, 100% engineer retention, and sustained quality at scale
Immersive Digital Experience
Deliver an immersive app blending video transitions, animated backgrounds, and headless CMS—on a tight runway
Built end-to-end with Contentful, Cognito auth, and custom full-screen video transitions with animated color swirl backgrounds
Launched on time, bug-free, with smooth visual polish that delighted users
Marketing Technology
Healthcare company needed accurate conversion tracking while navigating strict privacy and compliance requirements
Implemented server-side tracking infrastructure, bypassing client-side limitations and ensuring HIPAA-compliant data flow
Full-funnel attribution visibility, improved ad spend efficiency, and zero compliance incidents
Why Kinetic?
Always in motion. Building systems that anticipate change. Every ounce of energy directed towards the right solve, the first time.
That's the kinetic way.
What People Say
From clients and colleagues I've worked with
Lucas joined us when we were a scrappy team of three engineers with big ambitions but no real process. Within six months, he'd helped us build out a robust CI/CD pipeline, establish code review practices that actually stuck, and architect a system that could handle 10x our traffic. More importantly, he mentored our junior devs in a way that made them genuinely better engineers. When he eventually rolled off, we had a team that could stand on its own.
Jane Smith
CTO at TechCorp
When Lucas came on board, we had a product held together by duct tape and caffeine. He didn't just write software, he built the foundation that let us scale without losing our velocity or culture. The processes he put in place meant we never lost a single engineer to burnout or frustration, even as we grew to 8-figure ARR. I've worked with a lot of technical leaders, but Lucas is the rare one who can see both the architecture and the people.
Michael Chen
CEO at StartupCo
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Sarah Johnson
CEO at GrowthLabs
Let's Talk
Have a challenge? Let's discuss how I can help.