My journey in technology and engineering leadership
Update (April 2026): This retrospective was originally published in August 2024. After founding Bjuväng Consulting AB in November 2024 and serving as Chief Architect within Technology & Platform at Inter IKEA Group (the worldwide IKEA franchisor), I joined Inter IKEA Group permanently in April 2026 as Platform Management Manager, reporting to the CTO, leading the Platform Delivery organization, and holding group-wide responsibility for Digital Engineering & Platform Management. I am no longer looking for new opportunities, though I am always glad to exchange perspectives on LinkedIn.
I am a senior technology leader within the technology and engineering field. My interest in engineering was shaped by a childhood filled with Commodore 64, 8-bit video games, and endless experiments, tearing apart any equipment I could find and trying to put it back together again.
Education and Early Career
I did six years of university studies across three universities: Lund University, Malmö University, and Midsweden University. Straight after university, I started my first full-time software engineering position in a team that was creating the first national web-based e-prescription service.
Key Project:
- Developed the first national web-based e-prescription service, transforming how prescriptions were managed on a national scale, directly improving healthcare delivery.
Key Challenge:
- Understanding the healthcare domain as a junior engineer and designing a system that complied with strict regulatory and security requirements.
Sony Ericsson & Sony Mobile: Living the iPhone disruption
We are now in 2007, and at Sony Ericsson, a whole new world of global enterprise learnings opened up to me. After starting in application management, I went on to become a tech lead and later a domain architect. During this time, the introduction of the Apple iPhone led to downsizing and outsourcing of many of our colleagues. This meant that I worked with landscape simplification, sunsetting solutions and outsourcing many technical teams, mainly to Beijing, where I spent significant time on-site.
Key Projects:
- Tech Lead and Domain Architect: Drove architecture across multiple platforms during the industry’s rapid transformation.
- Led outsourcing efforts: Managed the transition of several technical teams to Beijing, ensuring continuity and efficiency.
Key Challenge:
- Managing the downsizing of teams amidst the global disruption caused by the iPhone while balancing new development with existing operations.
Achievements:
- Received the Sony Ericsson Recognition Award for stepping in during a crisis and bringing critical systems online when the usual staff was unavailable.
Read more: My journey at Sony Ericsson during the iPhone race and In our Beijing office, I gained some significant insights + Locked in the Glasgow office at midnight, with one functioning PC and growing hunger, we continued our search
Stretch Öresund: Entrepreneurship in consulting
After five years at Sony Ericsson, I decided it was time to explore new opportunities and joined Stretch Öresund, a consulting company in Malmö. Together with a few colleagues, I helped start the Software Solutions department, which focused mostly on Microsoft technology solutions based on .NET/C# and SharePoint. I spent significant time in assignments as code reviewer and also implemented distributed caching for to improve performance in key solutions.
Key Projects:
- Co-founded the Software Solutions Department: Played a central role in launching this department, focusing initially on healthcare tech solutions and later expanding into the automobile and financial sectors.
- Healthcare Deployments: Delivered healthcare solutions that gained national attention and were widely adopted in southern Sweden.
Key Challenge:
- Building a department from scratch and managing a wide variety of clients across healthcare, automotive, and finance sectors, all with different requirements and expectations.
Key Takeaway:
Technology isn’t just about code; it’s about understanding the broader system and how to serve people effectively.
More Reading: When our deploy filled hospitals and made the news and A discreet inquiry revealed they believed they had a unique custom solution, which, as it turned out, their competition now also possessed.
IKANO Bank: Standardizing in a complex world
I began consulting at the IKANO Group / IKANO Bank and later transitioned into an internal role as the domain architect for internet banking and mobile apps. This was a time of heavy restructuring and standardization as we sought to align the different markets under the same architecture.
Key Projects:
- Architect for Internet Banking and Mobile Apps: Led the restructuring of multiple markets into a unified architecture to streamline processes across IKANO Bank. Introduced abstraction layers to take pressure of the core banking system.
- DevOps Implementation: Introduced DevOps pipelines, improving development speed while ensuring compliance with the bank’s regulatory obligations.
Key Challenge:
- Balancing the need for innovation with the strict requirements of a highly regulated banking environment, particularly when integrating various market-specific systems into a unified architecture.
Key Takeaway:
Empowering development teams through DevOps not only improves efficiency but fosters a stronger sense of ownership and pride in the work.
IKEA Group: Building for scale and speed
When IKEA decided it was time to insource, I joined the IKEA Group as an Architect for the DevOps area, focusing on developer enablement, DevOps, automation, and CI/CD. I was later asked to setup and lead the Data & Integration unit and look at how to remove fulfillment tech constraints.
Key Projects:
- Cloud-Native capabilities: Led the development of a cloud-native data and integration capabilities, essential for supporting IKEA’s evolving omnichannel strategy.
- Data & Integration Unit: Founded the Data & Integration Unit, which focused on data platforms, API management, data pipelines, event management and much more. Rolled out the data mesh concept when capabilities matured.
- DevOps in a Box: Helped create a process to standardize DevOps practices across the organization, providing teams with autonomy while ensuring alignment with broader business goals.
- Fulfillment: Led a small team to look at constraints within fulfillment and omnichannel. Delivered optimization for store fulfillment and last mile delivery.
Key Challenge:
- Integrating legacy systems with new cloud-native platforms, all while managing a large-scale digital transformation that impacted teams across the globe.
Achievements:
- Led partnerships with global thought leaders, attended industry conferences, and represented IKEA at events such as Google Cloud Next in San Francisco.
Key Takeaway:
Balancing legacy systems with new innovations is key to maintaining agility while driving large-scale transformations.
More Reading: Company culture & goosebumps at IKEA Tech and Article on autonomous teams, the IKEA tech blog, written by me. + What Sweden needs is less talk and more ‘Goddammit, let’s do it!’ + In 2018, AI was not all that. + Google Cloud Next 2019 and Microsoft HQ
Edge Engineering: Innovating on the frontiers
Recognizing the need for focused innovation within IKEA Group, I proposed and founded Edge Engineering. This unit was designed to focus on experimental and emerging technologies that weren’t yet a priority in the core domains.
Key Projects:
- Edge Engineering Team: Built and led a small, agile team that focused on experimental technologies, driving innovation in areas that lacked dedicated focus within the organization. Reported into the CTO.
- Strategic Tech Acquisitions: Led the due diligence and integration of strategic tech acquisitions, contributing to IKEA’s broader digital strategy.
- Example of public available project, 3D as a Service: Created IKEAs first omnichannel enabled 3DaaS with native Google search integreation.
- Acted as corporate first responders to ease the burden of Covid-19 on our employees by enabling work from home, secure office policy etc.
Key Challenge:
- Operating on the “edge” of established systems, where the path forward wasn’t always clear, required careful balancing of experimentation and measurable results.
Achievements:
- Established systems and processes that continue to power parts of IKEA’s infrastructure today, with the Edge Engineering model inspiring other teams across the organization.
Key Takeaway:
Innovation often thrives at the edges of established structures, and small teams can drive significant impact if given the autonomy and resources to do so.
More reading: Keep it simple! Complicated systems and rules are a form of paralysis and By the time I left IKEA, CHECKA had helped distribute over 10,000 items to our colleagues. + Our colleagues in the store loved the idea. This was early COVID times, and they saw it as a real touchless time-saver.
StepStone Group: Building the future of work
In early 2021, the former IKEA Group CTO invited me to join StepStone Group as VP Engineering. I led the creation of the Emerging Technology unit, which explored the application of AI, data, augmented reality, and other cutting-edge technologies in recruitment.
Key Projects:
- AI Interviewers and Visual Job Finder: Developed groundbreaking tools in AI and AR to enhance the recruitment process, offering a more dynamic way for companies to find talent and for talent to find jobs.
- Emerging Technology Unit: Established this unit with teams in Malmö, Warsaw, and London, focusing on partnerships, developer relations, and tech acquisitions.
- Consolidation of platforms: I led the strategy work for architecture and software engineering to achieve platform and organisation consolidation.
Key Challenge:
- Navigating the complexities of integrating new technologies across multiple acquired markets while ensuring alignment with StepStone’s broader strategy.
Achievements:
- Showcased our innovations at internal and external conferences, earning recognition from the CEO and press coverage.
- Consolidated platforms, unifying both architecture and the digital organisations to optimize time to market.
Key Takeaway:
Embracing emerging technologies allows traditional industries to break through boundaries and create new ways of working.
What I’ve Learned Along the Way
Reflecting on my journey, a few key lessons stand out:
- Curiosity drives innovation: From disassembling electronics as a kid to leading AI projects in recruitment, curiosity has always been my driver for innovation.
- Empowered teams deliver the best results: Giving teams the autonomy to innovate within structured frameworks leads to faster, more meaningful results.
- Adaptability is key: The tech landscape is constantly shifting, and being able to adjust quickly is crucial for long-term success.
- Keep people at the core: Technology is a tool, but its true value lies in how it improves the lives of the people who use it. The same applies to the organisation. People over process.
2024–2026 Update: Bjuväng Consulting AB & Returning to IKEA at Inter IKEA Group
In November 2024, following this post, I founded Bjuväng Consulting AB to take on executive engineering leadership and enterprise architecture assignments, including serving as Chief Architect within Technology & Platform at Inter IKEA Group (the worldwide IKEA franchisor).
In April 2026, I transitioned into a permanent leadership role at Inter IKEA Group as Platform Management Manager, reporting directly to the CTO, leading the Platform Delivery organization, and holding group-wide responsibility for Digital Engineering & Platform Management. Feel free to connect on LinkedIn if you want to exchange perspectives on platform strategy, engineering leadership, or applied AI!