Hi, I’m Mikaela.
I shape products, develop designers and stay hands-on
Match your needs with my skillsI’ve worked across product development, design and leadership in different roles, but always with the same starting point: the people who will use what we create.
I like understanding their everyday experiences, spotting opportunities and asking what’s really worth solving. How can we make things easier for people while also creating value for the business?
I enjoy exploring ideas, making them tangible and testing them early – not to prove we’re right, but to discover what we haven’t understood yet. That helps us rethink our assumptions and make better decisions.
I also value being hands-on with design, from early sketches to considered user flows and interfaces. I’m just as comfortable setting direction and leading development teams or designers as I am helping shape the solutions myself. It’s that combination I’d like to continue working with.
Companies I’ve worked with
- Liber
- PostNord
- Bilwebben
- Byggföretagen
- TRR
- Baemingo
- Savvy Match
- Leeroy Group
- Viaplay
- Stockholm School of Technology
- Eurotransport
Some experiences I’ve learnt from
I’ve had the opportunity to work in different ways – close to users, shaping product direction and alongside designers in their teams. Here are a few experiences I bring with me.
- 4 development teams
Product leadership at BaemingoI owned the roadmap and priorities for a restaurant platform developed by four engineering teams.
- 4 designers
Design leadership at LeeroyI line-managed four designers and worked to give them more room to investigate user problems and shape design decisions.
- 30% → 50%
Match profiles at TRRDuring my time at TRR, the proportion of users with a match profile increased from 30% to 50%. Complete profiles also rose from 80% to 93%.
- From 5 initiatives to an entire department
Customer insight at LiberI developed a shared approach, tested it across five product initiatives and helped introduce it throughout the product development department.
“Thank you, Mikaela, for helping us at Liber raise our skills in customer insight work!”
Selected work
Making things better
My work ranges from new product ideas and complex UX design to product leadership and helping design teams grow.
Explore what interests you most, or browse all my projects.
What kind of experience are you looking for?
Have a role in mind? Paste your need and see which of my skills and cases matchOwning the roadmap and priorities across teams, and shaping where a product is heading.
Line management, coaching and shared ways of working, so designers and teams can make more decisions themselves.
Exploring an idea, testing concepts and shaping a first version, sometimes all the way to launch.
Research, flows and interfaces for services with many rules, steps or users, from first sketch to development-ready design.
Structure, navigation and shared components that keep a website or product consistent as it grows.
Research that shapes product decisions, and AI used where it helps the people using the service.
More filters
No cases match these choices.
- Creating a loyalty programme that follows the diner, not the payment method I led product development across app, till and back office. The project reported a 39% average increase in sales.
- Leading a design team from delivery to product ownership I line-managed four designers and helped them move from mainly delivering interfaces to investigating user problems and shaping product decisions.
- From product vision to a connected job-search service I developed the product vision and designed connected services for jobseekers, employers and advisers.
- Making the match profile easier to find, create and keep up to date I led UX work from research and usability testing to development-ready designs that made it easier to get started and maintain a profile.
- Helping companies find candidates who’ve already shown interest I led the design of a new service, from interviews with 30 companies and concept testing through to launch.
- One reporting flow that makes complex rules easier to navigate As the sole UX/UI designer, I simplified working-hours and payroll reporting across a service with complex underlying rules and systems.
- Making customer insight part of product decisions I developed a shared approach, tested across five initiatives and introduced throughout the product development department.
- Leading product development for a growing restaurant platform I owned the roadmap and priorities across four development teams, combining product leadership with hands-on self-service design.
- Exploring how parcels could be sent without labels I led the exploration and testing of two possible concepts, providing evidence for future investment decisions.
- Bringing three brands together in one connected website experience I created a shared structure and navigation for three brands, from early ideas to a website ready to launch.
- Redesigning the journey from car search to dealer contact As the sole UX/UI designer, I worked across the journey and delivered development-ready designs and a shared design system.
- From an early idea to a mobile product for skills-based matching I helped the founders shape the first product version and designed experiences for both candidates and employers.
- New restaurants go from sign-up to their first sale on their own, without waiting for help As product designer, I conducted the product discovery, designed the user flows and the interface, tested with users and delivered development-ready design for the log-in and the self-service onboarding in the Baemingo web app.
- From support-dependent setup to a menu builder restaurants can use themselves As product designer, alongside my role as Product Manager, I designed a menu builder for Baemingo’s self-ordering.
- Designing the complete hiring journey, from need to decision As product designer, I designed the employer side of Savvy Match, from a hiring need to closing a role, first in Figma and later as a working prototype in code..
- Helping aspiring business owners work out what they need to charge As the UX designer for Starta företag, I designed the collection page and turned TRR’s Excel business calculator into a guided digital tool.
- Helping TRR’s advisors find more relevant candidates As the sole UX designer in the area, I designed how TRR’s advisors search, filter and select candidates for employers’ recruitment needs, based on candidates’ match profiles..
- Creating a consistent way to filter across TRR’s services Together with designers from other product teams, I helped establish a shared approach to filtering at TRR..
- Bringing TRR’s job-search support together around users’ needs I designed a connected experience centred on Sök jobb, a collection page that organises TRR’s guides, tools and services around job seekers’ needs..
- Making it easier to find jobs and tailor a CV with AI support As the sole designer in the product development team, I redesigned TRR’s job ads from searching to applying.
Didn’t find the right project? Tell me what you’re looking for and discover relevant cases and experience.
Match your needs with my skillsOr get in touch.
How I work
I don’t start with solutions. I start with understanding.
I want to understand what people are trying to do, why it’s difficult today and what actually needs to change.
Then I make ideas tangible, test them early and develop solutions with users, designers, developers and the business.
I believe in clear direction, shared ownership and attention to detail. That’s how ideas become useful products.
What I bring
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Finding the right problem to solve
I use research, interviews and analysis to understand needs and uncover opportunities. This gives teams better evidence for deciding what matters most.
- User research
- Problem framing
- Research strategy
- Opportunity mapping
- Ideation
- Concept development
- Validation
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Creating direction for the whole service
I look at how people, business goals, technology and products affect one another. That helps us develop connected services rather than improving isolated features.
- Customer journeys
- Service blueprinting
- Ecosystem mapping
- Customer insights
- Operational feasibility
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Turning ideas into usable solutions
I design journeys, interfaces and prototypes, test with users and refine the details until a solution is ready to build. Accessibility is part of the work from the outset.
- User flows
- Information architecture
- Interaction design
- Prototyping
- User testing
- UI design
- Design systems
- Accessibility
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Helping people and teams succeed
I enjoy helping teams find a shared direction, feel more confident in their decisions and agree priorities together. When I lead designers, I try to give them both support and room to grow.
- Design direction
- Product strategy
- Roadmaps
- Prioritisation
- Cross-functional leadership
- Facilitation
- Coaching
Tools I’ve designed and built
NewTools I’ve built, free to useAccessibility Checker and FixerI use AI to turn ideas into things we can try
I design and build tools and interactive prototypes to explore ideas, test solutions and make work easier.
AI helps me build and explore, but I still review the outcome and make the design decisions. It makes it easier to try ideas in something people can actually use and evaluate.
Here are some of the tools I’ve built, free to try.
Shall we make something good together?
I’m interested in opportunities that bring together design, product development and leadership. Where I can contribute experience and hands-on design alongside people who care about creating something genuinely useful.
A permanent role
I’m looking for a role where I can develop people and products, create direction and stay close to users and design.
An assignment
I can help when you need to understand a problem, explore a new service, improve an existing product or move from an idea to development-ready design.
Have a challenge, an idea or a role you think might suit me? I’d love to hear from you.