He managed 120 people at Meta. Now, he's walking away from Big Tech to join Lovable.

• A Meta engineering director left Big Tech after feeling like more of "a passenger than a driver."
• He joined AI startup Lovable, drawn by speed and ownership.
• Lovable was recently valued at $6.6 billion and plans to more than double its head count this year.

After nearly four years leading a 120-person engineering team at Meta's London office, Patrik Torstensson felt he wasn't really in the driver's seat.

"In a company that big, you're more a passenger than a driver," Torstensson told Business Insider. "You can affect a few things, but you're quite far back on the bus."

That realization — and the rapid rise of AI — prompted the Swede to leave his role as a director of engineering in trust and safety at Meta and join Lovable, the fast-growing Swedish AI startup based in Stockholm, where he began as head of engineering on April 7.

Meta didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

A 'generational company'

Lovable's code-generation platform enables users to build apps and websites using AI. The company was valued at $6.6 billion in December after raising $330 million in funding, and saw its annual recurring revenue jump from $300 million to $400 million in a single month earlier this year, as Business Insider's Ben Bergman reported.

It plans to grow to around 400 employees this year, up from about 146 earlier in 2026.

For Torstensson, the chance to join what he described as a "generational company" was a major draw.

He also said he was drawn to the idea of enabling a new generation of "builders," including people without technical backgrounds.

"I have a lot of friends and family that have great ideas, but there's been no venue for them to build those things," he said.

Lovable told Business Insider that more than 40 million projects have been built on its platform to date, with over 200,000 created daily.

The company is still early in its development, competing in a crowded market of vibe coding platforms like Replit and Cursor, and racing to prove it can sustain its rapid growth.

Lovable CEO Anton Osika said Torstensson's hire reflects the next phase of company growth.

"We're past figuring out if this works," Osika said in a statement. "Now we're building the organization that carries it forward."

AI talent shift

Top AI talent is in hot demand, with Big Tech companies competing against each other and against AI startups alike in the hiring pool. At the same time, Big Tech companies are laying off thousands of workers.

Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at The Wharton School, said the appeal of startups has long been the chance to "hit it big" through equity, but layoffs at Big Tech companies are making jobs at these startups appear more stable.

Plus, "The ability to 'put your name on the machine' is another motivation for many, having real influence on some product being produced," he said.

Lovable hires for what its People chief officer Maryanne Caughey calls "founder DNA" — people who take ownership, move quickly, and are comfortable operating with autonomy.

For Torstensson, that environment and the chance to help shape it were part of the appeal.

"Everyone here is all in on the mission," Torstensson said. "Lovable has Silicon Valley intensity, but also a strong team culture."

After more than a decade working in Silicon Valley and London, he is ready to be back in Sweden.

"I've always had a feeling that I wanted to give back to Europe and Sweden," he said. "My family is getting older. I am getting older."