Joel Bystedt
Design Engineer, Stockholm, Sweden
I am a design engineer. I do UX design and software engineering as one job: I draw the interface, then I write it, and I stay until it ships. The handoff between design and code is where most products lose their intent, so I removed it.
Since August 2025 I have been the fourth member of the founding team at Ivy Interactive in Stockholm, where we build Ivy Tendril, an agentic software factory that turns plans into pull requests, and ivy.app, its website. I own the product's chrome: the chat, the sidebar, the dashboard, and the shared components underneath, along with most of the marketing site.
Before Ivy I spent three years at Valtech, starting as a UX designer in the talent program and finishing as a fullstack developer and co-team lead on an EasyJet engagement. I was among the first at the office to split my time evenly between design and development. Before that I led UX at We Know IT, where I reworked the brand, redesigned the website, and shipped more than twenty client projects.
I studied Interaction Technology and Design at Umeå University, a civil engineering master's programme in the computer science faculty with a focus on interaction and user experience. Along the way I won Venture Cup's Degoo Memory Challenge, tutored the interaction design course, and project-managed a graduation ceremony and a university inauguration.
Experience
August 2025 to present
Founding Design Engineer, Ivy Interactive
Fourth member of the founding team. Designs and builds Ivy Tendril, an agentic .NET software factory that plans, implements, tests and opens pull requests with any coding agent, and ivy.app, its marketing site.
February 2024 to August 2025
Fullstack Developer, Valtech
Fullstack developer on an EasyJet engagement. Became one of the senior developers on the team and co-team lead, leading development, external coordination and team progression.
February 2023 to February 2024
Front End Developer, Valtech
Frontend developer at Villaägarnas Riksförbund, among the first at the office to work half in design and half in development. Development for Save The Children in .NET 6, React and SASS.
August 2022 to February 2023
UX Designer, Valtech
Joined the Valtech Talent Program in Stockholm as a UX designer. Projects with Save The Children and AstraZeneca, plus lectures on design tools and methods.
January 2021 to August 2022
Lead UX Designer, We Know IT
Developed the design workflow, reworked the company brand and redesigned weknowit.se. More than twenty client projects, including Barncancerfonden and Stockholm University.
Education
2017 to 2022
MSE, Interaction Technology and Design, Umeå University
Civil engineering master's programme in the computer science faculty, focused on interaction technology and user experience design. Winner of Venture Cup's Degoo Memory Challenge, tutor in the Interaction Technology and Design course, project manager for the 2021 graduation ceremony and the university inauguration.
Skills
- design
- UX and interaction design
- Design systems
- Prototyping in Figma
- Motion and micro-interactions
- Brand and web design
- engineering
- TypeScript and React
- Next.js and Vite
- Tailwind CSS
- C# and .NET
- Turborepo and pnpm
- Accessibility and performance
- ai
- Agentic workflows and coding agents
- Vercel AI SDK and AI Elements
- Retrieval-augmented chat
- Agent-readable sites (llms.txt, structured data)