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Available for workproduct designer / engineer

I design human-first agentic products.

Digital craftsman focused on human-agent interaction and automation. I design intuitive products that make complex systems feel simple, and I measure success by real-world impact.

Illustrated portrait of lillefar

Case studies

A selection of recent engagements: design systems, product redesigns, and the engineering that ships them.

About

I'm a product designer and engineer based in Aarhus, a product designer turned AI-first builder. Over the past decade I've shaped digital products across fintech, healthtech, and SaaS, from Trustpilot's early growth to leading product at Fruity-AI, where I design agents that turn messy data into action. I bring design thinking all the way to production code, treating prompts, components, and design systems as the same source material, which means fewer handoff gaps and faster iteration.

Based in
Aarhus, Denmark
Focus
Design & engineering

Disciplines

Product Design
Design Engineering
Full-Stack Development
Product Advisory
Agentic Organisation Workshops

What I do

Product Design

End-to-end product design from discovery to polished UI: user research, information architecture, interaction design, motion and animation in Figma, and living design systems in Storybook that developers are happy to ship.

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Deliverables

  • User research & synthesis
  • Information architecture
  • Wireframes & user flows
  • Figma animations
  • Design systems in Storybook
  • Usability testing & iteration

Ideal for Startups validating new products and scale-ups tackling complex UX debt.

Design Engineering

I close the gap between design and code by building the thing myself. React component libraries, design-system tokens, and pixel-perfect implementations, written in TypeScript and ready for your CI pipeline.

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Deliverables

  • React, Vue and Angular component development
  • Design-system token architecture
  • Accessible, responsive UI implementation
  • Storybook documentation
  • Performance-aware front-end patterns

Ideal for Teams that need a designer who can commit code and a developer who thinks in components.

Full-Stack Development

End-to-end application development, from database and API to a polished front end. I ship production-ready features in TypeScript across the stack, with the design sensibility to make them feel right and the engineering rigor to keep them reliable.

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Deliverables

  • React, Vue and Angular application development
  • API & backend services
  • Database design & data modeling
  • Authentication & third-party integrations
  • Deployment & CI/CD setup

Ideal for Founders and teams that need a single person to take a product from idea to shipped.

Product Advisory

Fractional product leadership for teams that don't yet need a full-time product hire. I embed on a part-time basis to set product direction, review work, mentor the team, and help founders think through product strategy.

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Deliverables

  • Product process audit
  • Product principles & critique cadence
  • Hiring & team structure recommendations
  • Product strategy workshops
  • Ongoing product reviews

Ideal for Seed-to-Series A startups that need a seasoned product perspective without the full-time cost.

Agentic Organisation Workshops

Hands-on workshops that turn your organisation agentic. I help leaders and teams rethink how work gets done when agents do the heavy lifting, mapping where agents fit, redesigning workflows around them, and building the shared habits and guardrails that make it stick across the company.

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Deliverables

  • Agentic readiness assessment
  • Workflow mapping & agent opportunity audit
  • Hands-on agent building labs
  • Org-wide ways of working & guardrails
  • Adoption roadmap & follow-up enablement

Ideal for Organisations that want to reorganise around AI agents, not just add them to the side.

Timeline

  1. 2025 — Now

    Fruity-AI

    Lead Product Designer / Engineer

    Leading product across two AI-first products: Tendercore, a tender assistant that reads documents and assembles bids, and Peer, an AI colleague that acts on simple instructions across everyday work.

  2. 2024 — 2025

    proem

    Product Designer

    Co-created Proem News and Proem for Slack, annotating articles with scientific context and summarising links and documents inside Slack. An early-stage hunt for product-market fit across rapid experiments.

  3. 2021 — 2024

    Cactus Communications

    Lead Product Designer

    Lead design for Paperpal, an AI writing assistant used by academic authors worldwide. Shaped how AI suggestions live inside a critical writing surface without breaking trust.

  4. 2018 — 2021

    SOS International

    Product Designer

    Roadside-assistance ordering, breakdown triage, and video counselling software for psychologists. High-stakes flows under real time pressure.

  5. 2015 — 2018

    Boligportal

    Product Designer

    Turned a classic listing site into a matching product for tenants and landlords. Rethought contracts and transactional email.

  6. 2009 — 2013

    Trustpilot

    Product Designer

    Designed core review submission and the embeddable review widget that helped scale Trustpilot's early growth, fintech-adjacent trust surfaces at consumer scale.

  7. 2006 — 2015

    Other

    Enghouse Mobilethink, Cyberhus

    Campaign tooling and youth counselling software across agency and non-profit work.

Side Quests

Things I build for fun.

Weekend experiments and passion projects, built for the love of the craft. No client, no roadmap, just curiosity and a fresh stack to play with.

"A day in the life" timeline listing sleep duration, meals with calorie counts and durations, and board game plays tagged #bgstats like The Castles of Burgundy, Sagrada and Cascadia

Quantified Lillefar

June 2026

A personal quantified-self dashboard that stitches my own data into one timeline — sleep, meals and calories, board game plays and more — so a whole day reads at a glance.

  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • Firestore
  • Apple Health
  • BGStats
Explore the data
Pixel-art "BG Image Generator" logo in chunky yellow lettering over a retro landscape with clouds, on a mustard background

Image Generator for Board Game Designers

June 2026

A browser-based batch image generator for tabletop designers — upload a CSV, write a prompt template with {{column}} placeholders, and generate card, tile and box art at scale via the OpenAI Images API. Your key never leaves the browser.

  • JavaScript
  • OpenAI Images API
  • CSV
  • GitHub Pages
Try it online – Free
Word cloud generator showing palette, typography and layout controls above a Casino Royale–toned composition with "007" at its center, surrounded by James Bond words like martini, suave, licensed and debonair

Wordcloud

June 2026

An interactive word cloud generator that turns weighted words into a beautiful, print-ready A4 landscape composition — warm palettes, serif/script type pairings, and five layout algorithms.

  • JavaScript
  • Node.js
  • SVG
  • Google Fonts
  • GitHub Pages
Try it online – Free
Playful illustration of a couple in a cozy kitchen with a friendly robot whose torso is a toaster, surrounded by a stand mixer, pots, plants and a crate of fresh vegetables

Agentic Skills

June 2026

A collection of self-contained skills an AI agent can load on demand — board-game lookups, weekly Danish grocery offers, and recipe ideas.

  • Claude Code
  • Agent Skills
  • Python
  • Bash
  • Firestore
Download Skills – Free

Wishy

May 2026

A minimalist alternative to Ønskeskyen

  • Svelte
  • Tailwind
  • Firebase
  • Resend
  • open-graph-scraper
  • OpenAI
Visit
Michael joined Fruity-AI as one of the very first hires alongside the two founders, which is not always an easy position to step into. But Michael has handled it in a very natural way from the beginning. He has always pushed things forward in a sincere and honest fashion, with strong care for both the people he works with and the product he is building. He is not afraid to speak up or challenge opinions, but it always comes from a good place and with a lot of respect for his peers. Michael has played a key role in shaping… read more
Thomas FinkFounder & CEO at Fruity-AIManaged directly · June 2026
I've had the distinct pleasure of working alongside Michael for several years, and in that time, I've come to recognize him as one of the most dedicated and talented UX designers I've ever encountered. Michael's designs are not just visually appealing; they are user-centric, intuitive, and always aligned with the latest trends and best practices in the design world. His commitment to staying updated with design news, new products, apps, and services ensures that his work is always at the forefront of innovation. Beyond his technical prowess, what truly sets Michael apart is his character. His easygoing nature makes him… read more
Mads RydahlEntrepreneur, investor, and tech product leadWorked on the same team · September 2023
I got to knew Michael as he started in the early days of Trustpilot, when we were all young and inexperienced. Michael took part of the journey from a small company to a much more established size. We all learned tremendously from that journey, and earned real battle experience. As the company HQ moved to Copenhagen, and Michael decided to work from the Copenhagen office, despite his family living in Aarhus. We really appreciated that commitment. Michael is just a pleasure to work with and is excellent when you ping-pong on new ideas. You always walk away smarter. His constant… read more
Peter Holten MuhlmannFounder, Former CEO, TrustpilotSenior colleague · July 2013
I worked very closely with Michael on designing the interactions and user experience on Paperpal features. Much of the trademark Scandinavian simplicity and intuitiveness that you experience on Paperpal is due to Michael's clean aesthetic. Edutech applications can be highly specialized and complex, and there's a bit of a learning curve; Michael's layperson POV helped us innovate and take more risks on — he never once felt compelled to copy from the competition. Throughout the time we worked together, Michael also supported product with UXR initiatives including prototype tests that helped us get a better idea about our users and… read more
Charlotte BaptistaProduct at WorkhumanWorked on the same team · April 2024
During my year and change at Cactus, I had the delight to work together with Michael as my closest colleague. Not only is Michael an immensely talented, thoughtful and creative product designer, he is also an extremely compassionate and warm man who helps elevate others to be their most valuable and happy selves. Michael's ability to think on his feet and involve the team in the design process leads to designs that are eminently usable both to the team and to the users. His eye for user understanding and needs, cohesion and good usability are absolutely stellar. If you need… read more
Lasse Korsgaard AndersenInsights which move mountainsWorked on the same team · May 2023
I have had the pleasure of working with Michael for over a year at Cactus Communications, and I can confidently say that he is an exceptional product designer with a broad knowledge of design and development of digital products. He is a team player who is always eager to work with others to turn an idea into reality. Additionally, Michael is motivated by the goal of building great products that solve real-world problems for users, and he is always looking for ways to measure and test the effects of product changes on user behavior. Michael's background in social science gives… read more
Neeraj SanghaniCo-Founder, Aasaan Health Solutions & Reisaan HealthManaged directly · January 2023
Michael came to work for SOS International in the spring 2018. Already from very start Michael was a true ambassador for the end-user. His relentless search for end-user value has made a significant impact on products. In addition, Michael is great team player and contributor to an innovative and open culture. It's been a privilege working together with Michael.
Kim MadsenInnovation Management & People LeadershipManaged directly · December 2019
Michael is passionate about doing things in a way that makes the end result feel sharp and genuinely useful for the user. He is happy for a solution to be simple, as long as the user is left with the impression that we, as the provider, did our very best to help them with the need they had. That is why Michael immerses himself in the user's situation and combines it with his deep insight into trends and technical possibilities, so he can create the best possible user experience. Michael is never afraid to challenge the established way of doing… read more

This recommendation is translated from .

Karsten BørglumSenior Project ManagerManaged directly · February 2018
I hired Michael in Mobilethink both because of his personality and skill level. Michael is a really cool guy to be around and he has a really good vision for questioning and improving the assignments he is given. He is not someone who just gets a task and leaves at 4, but someone who can really make a difference in the products you are trying to create — both technically and from user experience point-of-view. He is a rare combination of a good frontend developer and a good designer, which I really like. I was really sad to see him… read more
Thomas Yde FrederiksenTech VP, founder and investor · ex-AirbnbManaged directly · July 2015

Let’s talk

Have something you’re working on and could use a hand? I’m open to new projects and collaborations of all shapes and sizes.

The fastest way to start is a free 30-minute intro call. Book a meeting on the calendar and we’ll take it from there.

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