Andrew Crookston
Engineering Leader | AI · Scaling Teams & Platform Strategy · Startups to Enterprise
Stockholm, Sweden · Swedish & English (both native)
[email protected] ·
andrewcrookston.com ·
LinkedIn ·
GitHub
Summary
Engineering leader who builds high-performing organizations and turns technology into measurable business outcomes. I combine 20+ years of hands-on technical depth with strategic and commercial thinking — from co-founding a profitable startup to driving multi-million SEK savings through organizational and infrastructure decisions. My current focus is AI-powered product development in regulated healthcare, navigating EU MDR and AI Act compliance while shipping at pace. I’ve built and scaled teams across Stockholm and San Francisco at companies ranging from early-stage startups to billion-dollar scale-ups, and I’m most effective where technology strategy and business growth are inseparable. Actively building products and writing about the transformation of software development.
Work Experience
Doktor.se — Engineering Manager
- Emerged as sole technical leader across multiple leadership transitions, consolidating all technical direction under one vision
- Unified previously disconnected teams into a “One Engineering Org” model with autonomous squads and advisory forums
- Driving AI-powered health assistant services (triage, anamnesis) navigating EU MDR, AI Act, and GDPR compliance
- Leading multi-platform consolidation (Doktor.se, Maja.no, Doktor24.se, Kollarna.se) including build vs buy decisions, while maintaining regulatory compliance, patient care quality and service efficiency
- Spotted cost imbalance in 80/20 consultant-to-FTE ratio, managed vendor transitions and drove ratio to 30/70 — saving 5–7M SEK annually
- Identified over-engineered infrastructure platform, hired DevOps talent and drove refactoring — delivering 1M+ SEK/year in savings and growing
- Initiated DevOps culture transformation with layered ownership model giving product teams infrastructure responsibility
- Preparing technical infrastructure, documentation, and investor-ready reporting for IPO due diligence
Lifesum — Tech Lead / Engineering Manager
Led and mentored iOS team of 5. Drove key technical projects and partnered with Apple and product team on roadmap.
Kry — Senior iOS Consultant (via Digitalent)
Improved internal UI/UX framework and CI/CD processes for patient-facing iOS app.
Spotify — Senior Lead iOS Consultant (via Digitalent)
Built Car Mode, Spotify’s mobile experience for car connectivity, reaching 50M+ users. Completed proof-of-concept and set foundation for converting the entire Spotify app to a car-friendly experience.
Digitalent — Mobile Business Area Lead
Led Digitalent’s mobile practice — mentoring, teaching, and recruiting.
Instacart — Senior iOS Engineer
Delivered high-impact projects: earnings redesign, drive-in pickup, on-demand scheduling. Rearchitectured app for testability and developer experience. Redesigned parts of hiring process, conducted hundreds of technical interviews.
Throwdown Labs Inc. — Co-founder & CTO
Built two fitness iOS apps from scratch including backend. Keelo was profitable within year one, featured on App Store front page. Throwdown required advanced video editing/rendering and algorithmic matching.
Muzy Inc. — Software Engineer, Product & Growth
Built Muzy (reached #8 in App Store Photo category) and Hello (custom SMS/MMS for early Android). Spotted early mobile traffic trends, pushed company toward mobile-first strategy. Invented and executed 50+ A/B tests and growth optimizations.
Blogg Esse AB — Development Manager (CTO)
Took over a failing iOS project, rescued it, delivered successfully. Brought platform to profitability for the first time. Sweden’s 7th most visited website — 1M accounts, 3M uniques, 44M page views/week.
Earlier Roles
System Architect / Lead Developer · Newsline Group (2007–2010) · Systems Developer Consultant · Athega AB (2010–2011) · System Developer · The PAR Group (2006–2007) · Web Developer · Bisnode AB (2005–2006) · System Developer · Affärsdata AB (2003–2004) · Freelance · CA Systems (2005–2012)
Projects
Ord — Minimal WYSIWYG markdown editor. Live prototype. Open source (MIT). ordeditor.com
Enginr — Engineering management platform translating GitHub activity into actionable insights. Quality Radar, Ship & Impact Log, automated daily digests. Born from managing 25+ engineers. Launching 2026.
Writing — Publishing on agentic coding, SaaS disruption, and AI ethics in content creation. andrewcrookston.com
Skills
Leadership
Org design & scaling · Technology strategy · AI product development in regulated environments (EU MDR, AI Act, GDPR) · Executive communication · Stakeholder management · Budget management & cost optimization · Technical hiring & recruiting · Change management · Performance management · Mentoring & coaching · Risk management · Capacity planning
Technical
Full-stack architecture · AI/ML integration & agentic coding · Cloud infrastructure · Platform migration & system consolidation · DevOps, CI/CD & observability · Security & compliance (GDPR, NIS2) · Data engineering & analytics · API design · Mobile development (iOS, Android) · Data-driven decision making · Open source · Product & UX sensibility
Languages & Frameworks
Swift, Kotlin, Ruby, Python, TypeScript · iOS (SwiftUI, UIKit), Rails, Node.js, React · SQL, HTML, CSS
Tools
Claude Code, OpenAI / Chat GPT, Cursor AI · AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Grafana · PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch · Git, Figma · Linear, Jira, Notion
Education
Submarine Fleet Radio Operator · Swedish Navy (2003–2005) — Highest-tier conscription. Classified communications, submarine fleet. Security clearance. Leadership training.
National Technology Program · Cybergymnasiet (2001–2003) — C++, Java, systems administration.
EPiServer Developer Cert (2007) · C# .NET (2007) · Java (2005)