Zurich, Switzerland Β· Product Γ— Robotics

Victor Borja Guimera

Product for technology that touches the physical world.

I'm a robotics engineer who became a product manager because I kept wanting to own the whole problem β€” the hardware, the software, and the decision about what's worth building. Nine years across control systems, clinical robotics, and B2B platforms; currently shaping the integration ecosystem at Frontify.

IROS 2022 published robotics research EPFL medical robot, 0 β†’ clinical pilots 2Γ— ARR, twice as first PM at Timly β‰ˆ100 integrations one ecosystem at Frontify
Fig. 01 β€” Live system Ball-balancing robot, planar model Β· state-feedback control @ 240 Hz running
ΞΈ lean 0.0Β°
αΊ‹ ball 0.00 m/s
Ο„ motor 0.0 NΒ·m
balanced for 0.0 s
wind 0 N
Crashed. Even feedback linearization has limits.

A planar cousin of my master thesis β€” Control of a Ball-Balancing Robot (Aalborg University, 2020): five degrees of freedom, three actuators, an underactuated MIMO system modeled with quaternion dynamics, estimated by unscented Kalman filters, and stabilized by nonlinear feedback linearization. This demo runs a 2-DOF simplification with LQR-style state feedback. Click the canvas or use ←/β†’ to shove it. Add wind and notice the steady-state lean β€” this controller has no integral action. The full treatment (and why the humble EKF beat my fancy UKF) is in the thesis.

Field reports

Ambiguous technical problem, shipped product. Four times.

Frontify Β· 2025–present Β· Senior PM, Ecosystem & Integrations

From ~100 integrations to one ecosystem

I inherited a hundred-odd integrations, fifteen-plus partners, and no operating model. I built the governance, portfolio structure, and delivery function; redirected Frontify's first e-commerce integration to a synchronization architecture after discovery broke the original concept; and started the ecosystem's first usage-analytics foundation. Also: AI-governance discovery β€” content credentials (C2PA), provenance, EU AI Act readiness.

β‰ˆ100 integrations, one model 15+ partner engagements 1st e-commerce integration
Timly Β· 2023–2025 Β· First Product Manager

Feature factory β†’ product-led

First PM at a Zurich SaaS startup. I built the product function from zero β€” discovery cadence, prioritization, Mixpanel/NPS instrumentation, session recordings β€” and moved the company from shipping features to shipping outcomes. The numbers followed.

ARR & customers 2Γ— YoY, twice NPS 4.0 β†’ 7.2
Fremco Β· 2018–2019 Β· R&D Engineer

Robots meet mud

Sensing and data-acquisition systems for fiber-optic installation machinery, tested in the field with the operators who used them. Industrial reality is the best teacher of failure modes β€” lab prototypes don't get rained on.

embedded sensing β†’ production design field-tested with operators
Selected systems

Things I've modeled, built, or published.

MSc thesis Β· Aalborg Β· 2020

Control of a Ball-Balancing Robot

Quaternion Lagrangian dynamics for a 5-DOF underactuated MIMO ballbot; unit-norm-preserving unscented Kalman filters; cascade nonlinear feedback-linearization control benchmarked against sliding mode. Honest finding: the simpler EKF won on complexity-vs-benefit.

quaternionsUKFnonlinear controlSimulink
github.com/VBorjaDD/MasterThesis β†—
Publication Β· IROS 2022

Modulo Cellulo: Modular Versatile Tangible Educational Robots

The peer-reviewed account of the robot platform I led at EPFL β€” modularity, tangibility, and the engineering that let one small robot serve classrooms and clinics alike.

IROShapticsHRI
paper & open-access PDF β†—
Aalborg incubator 2019 β†’ open source 2026

Wall-painting construction robot

Led business planning and market research for an autonomous painting concept in a startup incubator. Revived in 2026 as wallbot β€” an open-source cable-driven wall robot with a flat-coverage mode and a high-resolution mural mode.

0β†’1constructioncable robot
github.com/VBorjaDD/wallbot β†—
MSc portfolio Β· 2018–2020

Grippers, ultrasound & hydraulics

A low-cost underactuated robotic gripper; ultrasonic fault detection for concrete and metals; modeling and control of a hydraulic press. Project-based learning, Danish style.

mechatronicsNDTcontrol
● Current focus

Building wallbot β€” a cable-driven wall-painting robot, hardware on the way β€” and rebuilding the ballbot in simulation to compare classical control against learned policies, while working through the VLA stack. Notes will land here.

About

I started coding at fourteen because logic mapped cleanly onto outcomes. I studied software engineering, then went back for a second degree in industrial engineering β€” because I wanted to understand the physical world I was writing code for. Choosing years of a second foundation over a faster paycheck is the most honest signal of how I'm wired: depth and optionality over the fast path.

Since then I've oscillated between deep tech β€” control systems, sensing, robotics, computer vision β€” and the strategic side: consulting at Accenture and EY, then product leadership in Swiss SaaS. At EPFL the two careers fused. I'm most useful at the seam where software, hardware, and operations meet, translating hard technical reality into business decisions and back.

What I'm optimizing for now: a return to deep tech β€” robotics, AI, computer vision β€” in domains where the work touches the real world: medical devices, construction, agriculture. The long-term goal hasn't changed since I was eighteen: build my own products.

Based
Zurich, Switzerland Β· EU citizen Β· Permit B
Education
MSc Mechatronics & Control, Aalborg Β· BSc Industrial Eng., Carlos III Β· BSc Software Eng., King Juan Carlos
Languages
Spanish (native) Β· English (C1) Β· German (A2) Β· French (A2)
Mentoring
ADPList Β· Lenny's community Β· 8 mentees across product & engineering
Elsewhere
Contact

The interesting conversations are about robots, products, or both.