Jon Østerby Carlsen

Engineering executive who sets technology strategy and then executes it, end to end. Around 20 years scaling organisations across Europe and Asia, and now building AI and real-time data products at AXON Networks, where LLM-driven agents act on live network telemetry arriving at up to 50,000 datapoints per second per device.

Scope Executive engineering leadership over focused 40 to 50 person organisations and a business-wide transformation that reached around 200 engineers. Full remit across product, engineering, QA, and operations, with P&L responsibility, technology and AI strategy, security, and compliance.

Summary

Technology executive, now Director of Engineering and AI for EMEA at AXON Networks, where I own the organisation behind a cloud-native platform that turns network telemetry into operational insight and built the AI/ML team that puts LLM-driven agents on the live streams. Before AXON Networks I ran around 50-person engineering organisations as Director at Lunar and VP at Scrive, and held the full CTO remit at eSignatur, leading agile transformation, owning product, and lifting engineering practice. Earlier, at DFDS, I built the developer-platform department from 3 to 20 and drove a business-wide move to cloud-native that reached around 200 engineers and 500+ microservices on Kubernetes, from zero in three years. The through-line is simple: I tend to leave an organisation a maturity stage further along than I found it.

Credentials

Experience

  1. Director of Engineering & AI (EMEA)

    AXON Networks

    Jun 2023 – Present

    Lead the AXON Orchestrator organisation in EMEA, around 40 people, plus supporting integration of 70 across Europe. Own the engineering and AI behind a cloud-native platform that turns network telemetry into operational insight at up to 50,000 datapoints per second per device, and built the AI/ML team that puts LLM-driven agents on those live streams. Set the target cloud architecture, led the move from Java to Go, and built a continuous-delivery culture with clear ownership, holding one coherent architecture through post-acquisition integration.

  2. Advisory Board Member

    Heeplink

    Dec 2022 – Apr 2024

    Advisory role for a digital platform matching skilled people with the projects that need them.

    • Advised on technology direction and product strategy for the matching platform.
  3. Director of Technology, Developer & Platform Experience

    Lunar A/S

    Aug 2022 – Feb 2023

    Led Lunar's developer and platform experience department, around 50 people across 5 teams at a Nordic challenger bank. Ran it on OKRs with Team Topologies and domain-driven design, enabling self-service for engineering, data, and security while holding continuous regulatory compliance.

  4. VP of Service Operations & CTO of eSignatur

    Scrive

    Oct 2021 – Aug 2022

    Took on Scrive's service operations after it acquired eSignatur, retaining ownership of eSignatur and leading around 50 people across 5 teams (Firefighters, QA, DevOps, SRE, and e-signature) within a 200+ person, Vitruvian-backed business. Cut yearly operational cost by around 10% through AWS and database optimisation, stood up an EU-hosted version on Kubernetes for GDPR, drove ISO 27001 certification, and grew three team leads into managers.

  1. Chief Technology Officer

    eSignatur

    Apr 2021 – Oct 2021

    Led eSignatur, a small Danish e-signature company, as CTO, holding product ownership of the e-signature product and owning developers, QA, and support plus security, compliance, and the product and technical roadmap. Set the engineering practices and a costed cloud-adoption plan, drove ISAE 3000 certification, managed sourcing partners, and brought technical and product depth into pre-sale and customer follow-up meetings.

  2. Head of Department, Developer & Platform Experience

    DFDS

    Nov 2017 – Mar 2021

    Built the company's developer-platform capability from the ground up and led the business-wide move to cloud-native, scaling the core department from 3 to 20 people over three years. Oversaw cloud operations with a focus on security and cost-efficiency, and set the architectural direction and operating standards that let teams build and run their own services on the platform.

  3. Head of Department, Customer Experience (CMS & Booking)

    DFDS

    Nov 2014 – Oct 2017

    Led the customer-experience department behind DFDS's web, CMS, and booking, scaling it from 5 to 25 people across 5 teams. Evolved the architecture towards modern, responsive web, trained product owners, ScrumMasters, and engineers, brought design and UX into delivery, and moved the teams onto continuous delivery and infrastructure as code.

  4. Product Owner, SCRUM Master & IT Architect

    Ørsted (formerly DONG Energy)

    May 2010 – Oct 2014

    Product owner and technical lead across the energy IT estate, running SCRUM with distributed teams in Denmark and a 100-person offshore development centre in Asia, and setting architecture as the business modernised.

  5. Software Developer & Project Manager

    Ørsted (formerly DONG Energy)

    Feb 2008 – May 2010

    Built a new SMS gateway part-time while studying for my master's, using an IT project model and early agile practices.

  6. Software Development Intern

    Ørsted (formerly DONG Energy)

    Jun 2007 – Feb 2008

    Worked on automated metering over SMS as part of my bachelor studies.

Impact

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Approach

I lead with a clear purpose, create room for people to master their craft, and build organisations that can act on their own through autonomy and delegation. I start from the business strategy and work back to the technology roadmap, so the engineering bets line up with where the company is going. The work has usually meant changing how teams operate, not just what they ship, through agile transformation and stronger engineering practice. Most of what I build is there to make good outcomes repeatable rather than heroic: self-service platforms, and measurement tied to real business results instead of activity. I meet an organisation at the maturity stage it is actually at and move it forward one deliberate step at a time, toward automation and AI-driven operations. That is the work at AXON Networks now, carrying a modern engineering culture into agents that act on live network data.

Writing

Selected Work

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Expertise

Education

Certifications & Networks

Publications & Honours

Voluntary Leadership

Personal Details

Born
4 September 1982
Nationality
Danish
Status
Married

Interests