Welcome, new friend
my name is Stefan Sohlstrom, and I'm currently chasing curiosities around Northern California.
The purpose of this site, is to share some about who I am, and a little of what I've learned. It's a work in progress—something I'm contributing to regularly—in an effort to put more of myself online.
Have thoughts? Please contact me, I'd enjoy meeting you.
Don't have time for an email? Give me a button click. I love when you do that. ← these are everywhere in this site.
Work
For work, I'm a designer and programmer, currently working in Product at Uber Freight.
Before that, I worked at companies with names like Otto and Plaid. Also I helped start a design studio.
Today, I work on a product called Uber Freight for shippers. It's software that allows shippers—like breweries and tire recyclers—to find trucks for their shipments.
I switched from Designer to Product Manager in order to start the shipper team and build this product. I greatly enjoy Product, though miss certain parts of design. I was a founding member of the Freight line of business at Uber after a startup I was working with was acquired by the firm.
Before that I was the fifth employee at a company called Plaid, where I stayed for almost 3 years building the infrastructure that underlies much of the financial technology companies around today.
Life
I currently live in North Beach with my girlfriend. From this space I do a lot of outdoor sports, side projects, reading, and research.
I have a revolving list of deep obsessions that I pick up and put down regularly. Over the last 10 years, the recurring ones have been fonts, graphic design history, sign lettering, programming, bread, pizza, collecting old signage, skiing, biking, and most recently surfing.
Surfing, over the last year, has been the obsession that I haven't been able to exhaust. I try to go two times a week, good weeks I get three in.
Origins
I'm originally from 15 minutes outside Portland, OR. It's a place called Lake Oswego. Growing up there was like winning the Keno of life. Nature, water, mountains, beach—everything was close by.
I got to spend most of my time every winter on Mt. Hood skiing and exploring Government Camp. I still try to ski every weekend during the winter.
I went to University of Oregon, where I got a degree in Journalism. But most of my time was spent building new things with computers.
After graduation, I moved to San Francisco without a job—where my rent jumped from $400/m to $1700/m.