I build software products, write about engineering and entrepreneurship, and explore what it means to build a meaningful, independent life.
Hi, I’m Magnus
I’m a CTO, engineer, and systems thinker focused on building thoughtful software and meaningful businesses.
Over the past decade I’ve worked across research, startups, and product development, from doctoral research in materials science at NTNU, where I published work that has since been cited more than 100 times, to co-founding and building technology companies.
Today I’m CTO at Midstay, where I lead a small engineering team and help shape the systems behind a growing global retreat and B2B SaaS business. A recent example is this estimator and proposal tool, which helped cut proposal turnaround from days to hours.
My work sits at the intersection of engineering, entrepreneurship, and operations. I’m especially interested in designing systems that solve real problems clearly and hold up over time.
Outside of building software, I spend a lot of time exploring ideas about work, independence, and what it means to live a meaningful life. I currently live in Southeast Asia, where I balance writing, building products, and surfing.
Writings
How to Reign In Your Coding Agent
Everyone’s hyped about AI coding agents. Big tech says they’re replacing engineers. Solo founders claim they’ve built entire startups with a prompt. But if you’ve tried to use one on a real project, you’ve probably realized: it’s messy. This post explores how to make it less so - by giving your agent just enough structure to be useful.
What We’re Rethinking in the Age of AI: Product, Workflow, and Scale
When we started Midstay in 2021, we were building a B2C social app for digital nomads and remote workers. Like many early-stage startups, we kept our tech stack lean and focused on moving fast. Our workflow was fairly pragmatic and conventional: Figma for design, Notion for planning, Heroku for deployment, and Tailwind with Flowbite to build our Ruby on Rails UIs quickly. It worked well, and for a team of our size, we were reasonably productive.
The Burnout of the Ambitious Nomad
This weekend I’ve been sensing a burnout coming. It happens every other month if I take too much on, and at the same time have unforeseen stressful events coming up. This time it started building up while I was travelling to Bali. It made me think about digital nomadism, as I was working full time on the trip. Thankfully, I’ve gotten a lot better at responding to this when it comes up, and hopefully I will manage this time as well.
Where I've Worked
Co-Founder & CTO
Freelance Consultant
Backend Developer
Teacher Assistant
PhD/Researcher
Work with me
Alongside my day-to-day work, I occasionally take on a small number of consulting projects. I usually work with founders and small teams who want help clarifying what to build, scoping it well, and shipping something solid without unnecessary overhead.
If you are working through a technical decision, trying to move faster, or want an experienced builder to help shape and deliver a focused project, I would love to hear what you are building.
See how I work