Built by someone who's been in the arena.

"Through hardships to wisdom." Per Aspera Sapientia was founded on the belief that good judgment comes from earned experience — not frameworks, not certifications, but hard-won perspective from building real systems under real constraints.

Charles Gibson spent 15+ years in the trenches of platform engineering before founding this firm. He led teams through crises, built infrastructure that outlasted multiple reorganizations, and learned what actually works — not what sounds good in a vendor pitch.

Built by someone who's been in the arena. graphic
The Philosophy
I find where a system is relying on discipline instead of structure — and replace the discipline with structure. Organizations pour resources into building systems, then rely on heroic discipline to keep them running. That's not sustainable. That's not scalable. That's not engineering.

What Makes This Work: Self-Awareness as a Skill

Technical competence isn't enough for complex system challenges. Understanding your own cognitive style — what you're naturally good at, what you're not — is what separates advisors who help from advisors who just sound smart.

Strategic Thinking (Top 10)

Seven of Charles's top ten CliftonStrengths themes are strategic thinking themes. Pattern recognition, systems analysis, cause-and-effect mapping — this is the cognitive foundation for the work.

This isn't just technical problem-solving. It's the ability to see how technical decisions ripple through organizations, teams, and incentives. That's why the work is sociotechnical, not just technical.

A Deliberate Weakness

Discipline ranks #32 out of 34. That matters.

The work isn't about pushing harder or being more rigorous. It's about designing systems that work regardless of individual willpower. A #32 in discipline isn't a character flaw — it's exactly why this approach resonates.

When you instinctively distrust "just try harder" solutions, you build systems that don't need them.

The Sociotechnical Lens
This combination — strong strategic thinking, low tolerance for willpower-based solutions, and 15+ years of earned experience — is what makes the work sociotechnical rather than purely technical. Technical solutions to technical problems often create organizational problems. Organizational solutions to organizational problems often create technical debt. The work requires seeing both sides.

Selected Impact

The work speaks for itself. Here are some of the outcomes delivered under constraint and the stakes were high.

Built Under Fire

Designed and delivered CHS-6's compliance and operations platform front-end infrastructure on the second-largest contract win in Leidos history — an $8B Army procurement vehicle. Chose serverless over the org's standard Kubernetes platform because idle compute was a direct cost to the contract's revenue model.

Unified DoD CAC and Leidos PKI auth on one login screen — a problem that had defeated other Leidos programs. Live in six weeks. Built in production when the dev environment failed. No outages.

Functional CTO

Acted as functional CTO (chief engineer/architect) for a ~$20M product unit — providing architectural direction across 50+ engineers without formal authority or managerial hierarchy.

Established developer experience standards and platform frameworks adopted by 2,000+ engineers across a multi-billion-dollar business unit — infrastructure that survived multiple reorganizations and sustained delivery for 5+ years.

7× Cost Reduction

Replaced complexity with structure. Reduced cloud hosting costs 7× by replacing Kubernetes infrastructure with a serverless architecture — improving reliability and developer velocity simultaneously.

Built the Team

Built the Leidos Charlottesville software factory from scratch, recruiting UVA CS graduates competitive with Google and Amazon. Produced the company's first paying VR customer and early AI/ML capabilities including computer vision and digital twin products.

Real Results: AI Coding Assistant at Scale

At Leidos, Charles led one of the company's most prominent Sourcegraph Cody pilots — producing the metrics and policies (including the 'Ask Cody First' rule) that informed the broader rollout. The results speak to the importance of thoughtful adoption of new technology — not just the technology itself, but how it fits into existing incentive structures and workflows.

75% Reduction

Senior Leidos engineers reduced time spent answering teammates' questions from 8 hours per week to 2 hours per week.

50% Faster Code Review

One [Charles] architect used Cody to brainstorm solutions instead of scheduling meetings with other architects — eliminating coordination overhead.

"Ask Cody First" Culture

Leidos adopted the rule: if you haven't yet asked Cody, don't ask the senior engineer. This freed experts for higher-value work.

The Secret to Success
Security, flexibility, and context — Leidos needed a coding assistant that could work with their high-security environment while avoiding LLM lock-in. Sourcegraph Cody delivered all three. Charles led one of Leidos's most prominent Cody pilots, producing the metrics and policies (including the 'Ask Cody First' rule) that informed the company's broader rollout. The quote below comes from Rob Linger's documentation of that case study: "It's not just about time savings. It's about how you're able to spend your time." — Rob Linger, VP Information Decision Advantage Leidos

The Journey

2010

Started building distributed systems at SAIC/Leidos — learned that heroics aren't a sustainable engineering strategy.

2014

Led IT infrastructure at CCRi as it scaled 50→100 employees. Cut hardware costs 3× with custom Linux images.

2015

Recovered a failing Army/Air Force program through architectural intervention — halved costs and complexity.

2018

Built Leidos Charlottesville software factory. Founded emerging tech practice including VR and AI/ML.

2021

Appointed chief engineer/architect for ~$20M product unit. Led 50+ engineers without formal authority.

2023

Delivered CHS-6 compliance platform. Unified DoD CAC and Leidos PKI auth — a problem that defeated other programs.

2025

Founded Per Aspera Sapientia. Building Stackwright. Taking on select client engagements.

Ready to work together?

We take on a limited number of engagements each year. If you're facing complex platform challenges and want a partner who's been in the arena, let's talk.