Simon Nordberg

Simon Nordberg

Download as PDF

Simon Nordberg

Expert generalist: engineering, product & operations


+46706155590

What I do

Expert generalist with 20+ years building products from engineering and product perspectives. I've scaled platform organizations at Spotify, operated as CTO at Urb-it, and co-founded multiple companies. I stay close to technical decisions rather than managing from a distance, believe in incremental improvement over rewrites, and care about how all the pieces connect: vision, strategy, execution, and the people who make it happen.

Entrepreneurship

  • Hackerman AB, Founder

  • Gomorron Östersund, Co-founder & partner

  • Brightn AB, Co-founder & CTO

Education

  • Master of Science, Computing Science

Fun facts

  • Outdoor aficionado

    Happiest outside, I spend my free time running, skiing and mountainbiking.

  • Non-fiction book worm

    Love to read and learn; science, philosophy, psychology, medicine, arts, economics etc.

  • Beer brewer

    Hoppy NEIPAs are my favorite.

Experience

  • Umain, Technical Director

  • Volvo Cars, Product Manager (contract)

  • Wolters Kluwer, Architect (contract)

  • Spotify

    • Principal Product Manager

    • Senior Product Manager

  • ATG, Product Manager (contract)

  • Sysarb, Advisor (contract)

  • Urb-it

    • CTO (interim, contract)

    • Product Manager (contract)

    • Software Engineer & Architect (contract)

  • Adeprimo, Software Engineer & Architect

  • Ibitec, Software Engineer & Architect

  • Roxen Internet Software, Software Engineer

  • Exsitec, Technical Consultant

  • Ericsson, Master's Thesis

  • UKD Distans, Head Teacher

  • Utfors, NOC Technician

Companies and roles I'm interested in

I'm particularly interested in 20-150 person scale-ups that have found product-market fit but are facing the challenges of scaling, where what got you here won't necessarily get you further. This is my sweet spot, as I enjoy tackling the complexities that come with growth.

Engineering/product leadership roles

Leading engineering or product organizations where I stay close to technical and product decisions rather than managing purely through delegation. I build strategy, make architectural choices, and remove blockers while managing teams. Roles include CTO, CPO, VP/Head/Director of Engineering or Product.

Senior technical staff roles

High-impact technical work solving the most critical problems blocking growth. Lead the technical vision and architecture for cross-cutting systems, facilitate architectural decisions, and ensure scalability, reliability, and alignment with business goals. Roles include Staff/Principal Engineer, Chief Architect.

Both require understanding and influencing the entire system: people, product, and technology, rather than optimizing parts in isolation.

How I work

I believe in incremental progress over grand rewrites, staying close to the actual work rather than managing from a distance, and understanding how all the pieces fit together.

Compound over rewrite

I make systems incrementally better rather than starting over. Small improvements in architecture, processes, operations, and teams compound into lasting change.

Stay close

I remain connected to the work itself rather than managing from a distance. Understanding details matters for making good decisions and maintaining technical credibility.

See the whole

I care about how vision, strategy, execution, working product, culture, and people connect. Understanding the complete system matters more than optimizing any single part.


Experience, in more detail

Umain, Technical Director

Gothenburg, Stockholm

Establishing Umain's Gothenburg office from scratch. Recruiting and building the engineering team while leading technical direction on client engagements. Provide cloud infrastructure architecture and technical leadership across client projects in manufacturing and digital products. Define solution approaches balancing scalability, security, and delivery speed for companies scaling their engineering capabilities.

Tech stack: GCP, Next.js, Golang

Volvo Cars, Product Manager (contract)

Gothenburg, Stockholm, Remote

Led a team building a declarative infrastructure platform, enabling a unified approach to managing platform resources and improving the developer experience. Drove product strategy for a new department and coached platform leaders on fostering an effective product development culture for infrastructure and platform teams. Worked across multiple teams to align technical and strategic initiatives.

Tech stack: Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, Java, .NET Core

Wolters Kluwer, Architect (contract)

Gothenburg, Remote

Supported the leadership team across CTO, Architecture, and Operations domains. Led technology strategy, org design, and process improvements to enhance delivery and technical excellence. Defined architecture principles, patterns, and governance for the next-generation web platform. Improved reliability, performance, observability, and incident management for operational resilience.

Tech stack: Azure, C#, .NET Core

Spotify, Principal Product Manager

New York, Stockholm, Remote

Led the Cloud Storage Product Area, managing a portfolio of storage and database solutions that enabled Spotify's R&D teams to build and deploy stateful workloads at scale. Managed a global team of senior product managers, driving developer productivity while balancing reliability, performance, and cost.

Also served as strategy lead for company-wide platform productivity and business continuity initiatives, impacting all developers.

Tech stack: GCP, AWS, Bigtable, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Java, Python, Kubernetes

Spotify, Senior Product Manager

New York, Stockholm, Remote

Managed storage and database platform teams, driving improvements in developer productivity, reliability, performance, and cost. Additionally contributed to teams focused on configuration management and backend service foundations, enhancing developer experience for backend engineers.

Tech stack: GCP, AWS, Bigtable, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Java, Python, Kubernetes

ATG, Product Manager (contract)

Stockholm

Led the productization of cloud and messaging services to enhance developer productivity and operational efficiency. Defined product strategy, roadmap, compliance, and quality assurance.

Established a governance model for AWS access, providing teams with SSO, aggregated billing, logging, policy enforcement, auditing, and VPN connectivity. Designed and developed an Infrastructure-as-Code framework (Python) for self-service provisioning and application-level messaging configuration on the Solace platform.

Tech stack: AWS, Kubernetes, Networking, Solace (Appliance & VMR), Python, Golang, SAN

Sysarb, Advisor (contract)

Arboga, Stockholm, Remote

Advised on product and technology strategy as part of the management team, supporting Sysarb's vision of achieving workplace equality for its customers.

Tech stack: AWS, Azure, .NET

Urb-it, CTO (contract)

Stockholm

Led engineering, product management, UX, system integration, and test teams. Served on the executive team, driving product and company strategy.

Tech stack: iOS, Android, JavaScript, .NET, AWS, Azure

Urb-it, Product Manager (contract)

Stockholm

Managed a suite of four native mobile apps (iOS & Android) for consumers, merchants, and couriers. Led two development teams, one co-located and one distributed across two continents, to drive product development and delivery.

Tech stack: iOS, Android, Objective-C, Swift, Java, Kotlin

Urb-it, Software Engineer & Architect (contract)

Stockholm

Designed and developed three iOS apps for customers, merchants, and couriers, ensuring scalability and a seamless user experience.

Tech stack: Objective-C, Swift, Storyboard, MVVM

Adeprimo, Software Engineer & Architect

Östersund

Established and evolved development and architectural best practices across internal and client projects. Led software engineering efforts across diverse industries, including media, e-commerce, and tourism. Acted as a team lead and agile advocate, driving the company's transition to more effective product development methodologies.

Tech stack: Java, Objective-C, Scala, Python, Ruby, MongoDB, RabbitMQ, JavaScript, Linux, AWS

Ibitec, Software Engineer & Architect

Linköping, Stockholm

Specialized in enterprise Java applications on JBoss and WebSphere, delivering solutions for government, military, and insurance clients. Established architectural guidelines within the company and served as an instructor for Sun Microsystems' Enterprise Java courses (FJ-310, SL-351).

Tech stack: Java, JavaScript, J2EE, JavaEE, WebSphere, MySQL, Oracle, Linux, Scrum, RUP

Roxen Internet Software, Developer

Linköping

Developed features for Roxen Editorial Portal, a web-based multichannel publishing tool for the media industry.

Tech stack: Pike, C, Linux, MySQL, XSLT, Scrum

Exsitec, Technical Consultant

Linköping, Stockholm

Designed and implemented custom solutions for Movex ERP, from integrations to full application suites. Gained deep expertise in the IBM iSeries platform through consultancy and training on Linux on iSeries, iSeries LPAR, and SQL.

Tech stack: Java, JavaScript, iSeries, OS/400, DB2, Movex

Ericsson, Master's Thesis

Stockholm

Master's thesis entitled 3G IPv6 Node Emulator. Designed and implemented a Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) with IPv6 support for 3G end-to-end terminal testing. Developed in C/C++ and Python on *BSD, Linux, and Solaris, including modifications to the FreeBSD kernel and IPv6 stack.

Tech stack: C, C++, Linux, FreeBSD

UKD Distans, Head Teacher

Umeå, Malung

Taught high school students programming in C, C++, SQL, and Visual Basic in a part-time role.

Tech stack: C, C++, SQL, Visual Basic

Utfors, NOC Technician

Uppsala, Stockholm

Managed core and customer networks, handling infrastructure configuration, monitoring, and operations.

Tech stack: Solaris, Linux, Cisco, Juniper

Entrepreneurship, in more detail

Hackerman AB, Founder

Gothenburg, Remote

Provided product and technology consulting services. Conducted research in areas such as AI, and game engines.

Gomorron Östersund, Co-founder & partner

Östersund, Remote

Led product strategy and digital presence for a creative coworking space supporting startups and entrepreneurs. Also ensured top-quality coffee.

Brightn AB, Co-founder & CTO

Örebro, Östersund, Remote

Built and launched a digital platform enabling retailers to connect with customers, reducing reliance on printed discount flyers and improving engagement efficiency.

Tech stack: Objective-C, Swift, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, Machine Learning, AWS