About me
I am Svein Arne Ackenhausen, a senior software expert and founder of Contango Consulting. For more than 25 years I have built and led software delivery, and I have founded and grown software consulting companies in both Norway and Uganda. I work from Drammen, Norway.
Background
My experience is as much about industries as technology. I have delivered software for ship automation; built financial and CRM systems, including full logistics, order and sales management, purchase handling and electronic invoicing; built search platforms; delivered into NRK’s on-demand streaming platform; and laid the architectural foundation for the PatientSky health platform in Norway.
I built the entire pet care platform behind the PetKey app, including the app itself, a whole new way of thinking about care and health for pets, designed for the future with a fully AI-native software architecture.
Alongside client delivery I build my own products and tools: audio and video streaming services, a low-bandwidth, machine-learning-based collaborative tool for screen sharing and screen recording, built for our Uganda company, a fully scriptable development IDE that worked across editors, and a continuous-testing tool for .NET that gave developers sharper risk assessment of the code they were writing.
All of it rests on decades of hands-on engineering, from C#, F# and .NET to TypeScript, Java, Kotlin, Go, Python, React and Kubernetes, grounded in domain-driven design, CQRS, event sourcing and test-driven development. My experience spans the whole delivery chain, from team and product management process, through development, to infrastructure and hosting.
AI
I build with AI, not around it. I helped build an AI-based stress detection system in fish farming, and I build full data analysis and data-structuring tools powered by AI. More recently I build prompt- and voice-controlled applications, and full agentic workflows with the eval and RAG harnesses that make them reliable.
Building companies
I have not only built software, but software companies. I founded Contango Consulting in Norway in 2010, and founded and built up the software consulting company Acerat in Uganda in 2017. That has given me experience developing companies and teams across borders, not just code: building culture, delivery capability, and a professional environment that lasts.
Speaking
I speak and create content on software architecture, delivery and AI, from message-based and asynchronous architecture to trustworthy, agentic AI systems.
Find me
How I work
- Scoped projects only. Defined deliverable, defined end.
- Fixed price buys the finished work. Not an estimate, not a rate card.
- Free scoping. Every engagement starts with a free conversation that ends in a concrete quote.
More on experience, roles and projects coming soon.