David Wertheimer

Transformational Tech Leader Empowering

High-Performance Teams

Get to Know David

Background

David, with a strong background in technology and product management, has a track record of building and leading cross-functional teams to achieve exceptional results. He has extensive experience in e-commerce, SaaS, and technology-driven organizations, where he has successfully transformed engineering cultures, improved team productivity, and aligned technical strategies with business goals.

David's leadership is based on implementing effective product operating models to ensure that teams have the structure, ownership, and agility necessary to drive business results. Through promoting a culture of accountability and collaboration, he fosters high-performing teams that create impactful software, recognize their value to both the customer and the organization, and work effectively together. His approach optimizes processes, drives innovation, and ensures technical efficiency, leading to measurable success.

Skills

David is a skilled leader with a proven ability to implement and optimize product operating models, leading to improved team performance and business success. He possesses strategic leadership skills, has experience in building cross-functional teams, and is adept at leading agile transformations. David excels in modernizing engineering practices, fostering organizational agility, and creating environments where teams are aligned with customer needs and business objectives. His focus on continuous improvement, data-driven decision-making, and streamlined processes ensures that teams operate efficiently and deliver measurable value. Through transformational leadership, he drives technical efficiency and meaningful business outcomes.

Vice President of Software Engineering

Empowering CTOs to Build World-Class Engineering Teams

As a seasoned technology executive, I have over two decades of experience as a people, process, and communication leader. I have a proven track record of collaborating with CTOs and CEOs to build and empower high-performing engineering and powerful cross-functional product teams. I leverage my strategic thinking and hands-on experience to tackle complex challenges that deliver results, unlock success, and drive business growth.

Below is an outline of my approach to building and leading engineering organizations. I focus on key areas directly impacting the CTO's success in building world-class teams.

Leadership and Strategy:

Define a winning technical vision and roadmap that aligns with long-term business goals.
Create a clear technical strategy that prioritizes innovation, efficiency, and scalability.
Empower engineering teams to take ownership, make decisions, and deliver exceptional results.
Foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement within the engineering organization.

Growth and Stability:

Implement efficient processes and methodologies that empower teams while maintaining quality and reducing risks. This includes leveraging CI/CD pipelines, QA Automation, and a commitment to frequent deployments to streamline software delivery and ensure high-quality releases.
Review team topology to ensure the team has the right skills, experience, and composition to tackle any challenge.
Drive a data-driven approach to identify areas for improvement and optimize team performance and capacity through KPIs. This includes monitoring key metrics like velocity, lead time, and defect rates to identify bottlenecks and forecast future workload.
Manage technical debt to ensure long-term maintainability and avoid future roadblocks.

Collaboration & Communication:

Effectively communicate the technical vision and roadmap to keep everyone aligned and motivated.
Establish a communication strategy with all stakeholders, fostering a culture of open dialogue and information sharing.
Build strong cross-functional relationships with product, sales, customer success, and marketing to ensure engineering efforts align with overall business objectives.

Talent Acquisition & Retention:

Develop a comprehensive recruiting strategy that attracts top engineering talent.
Develop an onboarding process that gets new hires up to speed and delivers quickly and efficiently.
Cultivate a positive and rewarding work environment that fosters retention and engages top talent.
Partner with HR to implement a data-driven hiring process that identifies and hires the best candidates quickly and efficiently.
Invest in employee development by providing learning, growth, and career advancement opportunities.

Operations:

Implement a system for performance management that focuses on continuous improvement and team development.
Oversee vendor management to ensure the team has the tools and technologies to succeed.
Prioritize security and compliance to safeguard sensitive data and meet all regulatory requirements (GDRP, SOC2, PCI, NIST CSF) (I can provide these services by partnering with other Regulatory, Cyber Security, and Compliance consultants)
Manage the engineering budget effectively to ensure resources are allocated strategically, looking for opportunities to reduce expenses.

By partnering with me, you gain a proven coach and leader who can build and empower high-performing cross-functional product teams, drive your vision forward, and deliver results that transition your company to the next level.

Testimonials

David has been a friend, manager, and mentor for as long as I have known him. Professionally, I’ve benefited from his compassionate leadership and people-first management style. He has always made himself available to me and other team members to discuss all the challenges we are experiencing. He is an expert at decision-making, knowing when to be patient or decisive and analyzing a decision after it’s been made to improve processes, the team, and the business continuously. He is a skilled technical director who understands small technical details and can contextualize those details with larger business goals and craft targeted objectives for his teams.

I look forward to one day working with David again.

~ F.M. Bonnevier, Principle Engineer

David is an amazing engineering leader with a great understanding of business and product needs and empathy for the team that lets him connect and motivate engineers to do their best work. He is capable and willing to wear multiple hats, to recognize and fill gaps needed in the business, and to drive towards positive outcomes. He also handled our engineering hiring and recruiting functions, helped onboard new engineers, and helped manage our technical product backlog. He is an excellent engineering mentor and can budget, forecast, and help grow an organization. He’s also just a nice, genuine, honest person. I hope to be fortunate enough to work with David again!

~ Jeremy Haile, Co-Founder Sideqik

David is the best supervisor I've ever had, hands down. Kind, gentle, and extremely astute. I still rely on him for advice because he's been in the game for long enough to see disasters from a mile away. David knows how to make best practices implementable, making me continue consulting him from gig to gig. I can rely on him for his wise perspective on headcount, transitions in business model, recruiting and hiring, onboarding and training, interdepartmental collaboration, and company scale. He initially taught me how to be a great project manager, and as I rose through the ranks, he always offered help. David has a wealth of knowledge on home improvement and cooking, too: a rapport I've enjoyed developing with him over the past 8 years. I would happily be his report again, but thanks to his mentorship, I'm often my own boss. I would be a different person today if not for David.

~ Mariclare Hall, Product Leader

David profoundly understands what makes engineering teams successful and uses his excellent organizational skills to put this knowledge into practice through both process and personal leadership. He quickly develops a rapport with engineers on the team and is an outstanding mentor to engineering managers who report to him. He takes a holistic view of the technology, the product, and the market and uses this perspective to orient the engineering department toward addressing real business needs. David would be an asset to any engineering organization.

~ Daniel Powell, Technical Architect