CTO · Head of Technology

Dave Brody

I own technology end to end: the software a company builds, the systems it runs on, and the security program that protects both. I lead engineering and IT organizations, and I still write production code.

Dave Brody, smiling, in a dark button-down shirt.
20+ yearsleading engineering and IT organizations
40+ developersacross the US, India and Europe
SOC 2 Type IIand ISO 27001:2022, led end to end
5 AI platformsdelivered at CTI, plus products I built myself

Selected work

Products and platforms I designed and built, at work and on my own. Full portfolio on request.

B2B SaaS · Founder and sole engineer Live

ExiVox

Engineering intelligence for executives. ExiVox connects to GitHub, Jira and Confluence and answers the questions leaders actually ask: where engineering investment is going, whether delivery is healthy, and which initiatives are drifting. AI-written weekly briefs give executives the answer without another dashboard. Multi-tenant, with Stripe billing and five-role access control. I designed, built and launched it myself in 2026, and it has a paying customer.

  • TypeScript
  • React
  • LangGraph
  • MongoDB
  • Stripe
  • Docker
Hardware product · Firmware to storefront Pre-launch

NodPad

A pocket touchscreen pad for AI coding agents: see what Claude Code and Cursor are doing, approve requests with a tap, and speak prompts instead of typing them. I built all of it: ESP32-S3 firmware, a shared Rust core, macOS and Windows apps, and the storefront. Speech-to-text runs locally, and risky actions are never auto-approved.

  • ESP32-S3
  • C
  • Rust
  • Swift
  • C#/.NET
Security and compliance · CTI In production

ISO 27001 and SOC 2 evidence automation

Turned the annual audit scramble into a repeatable pipeline. A Drata API client syncs policies, evidence and control mappings, and a containerized capture desktop produces timestamped screenshots, including systems behind SSO and MFA, in the form auditors accepted the year before. Roughly 1,900 captures and 50+ versioned policies for the 2026 cycle.

  • Python
  • Drata API
  • Playwright
  • Docker
Applied AI · CTI In production

Company research assistant

A Microsoft Teams bot that gives tax-incentive consultants a cited briefing on a prospect in two to three minutes before a kickoff call. A short guided conversation collects the program, company and website; OpenAI’s o3 model with live web search writes the brief; and it lands back in the same chat. I owned the workflow, prompt strategy and Azure deployment.

  • Node.js
  • Bot Framework
  • Azure
  • OpenAI o3
Consumer app · iOS, Android, web Live · App Store

Ingrediosa

Cook with what you have. Pantry Mode turns the ingredients on hand into recipes, and AI generation invents new ones to use up leftovers. Monetized from day one with an ad-free subscription, ads and affiliate offers, backed by an AI moderation queue and 663 web tests at about 95% coverage.

  • React
  • Node.js
  • MongoDB
  • OpenAI
  • Pinecone
  • AWS
Fractional CTO · Volunteer verification In production

Altruize

Replaces paper sign-in sheets with verified digital records: volunteers log hours, nonprofits verify them through QR-code portals, and schools and institutions get portable impact reports. Web, iOS and Android, nonprofit verification against Candid/GuideStar, and infrastructure as code on AWS.

  • React
  • React Native
  • GraphQL
  • Postgres
  • Terraform
Technical lead · Small-business SaaS Release candidate

LocalSEO iQ

Scans a local business’s Google profile, rankings, website and competitors, then turns the results into plain-language findings and a ranked action plan. I took the founder’s Python prototype to a production-ready TypeScript system, with golden-scan parity tests proving it matches the original scoring.

  • TypeScript
  • RabbitMQ
  • Playwright
  • MongoDB
  • Claude

Also built: AgentCommander, a dozen scheduled AI agents that turn Outlook, Teams, Jira and Gmail into daily briefings on a custom ESP32 desk display · DavesArtCo Manager, an Etsy print-art business run end to end by an AI pipeline · DarwinTrader, a genetic-algorithm platform that evolves and validates trading strategies · Flank, a macOS window manager that tiles external displays automatically · CursorMonitor, which shows whether AI coding agents are working or idle · and Rupert, an AI advisory MVP I took through real user testing and then deliberately shut down.

Experience

Product engineering, infrastructure and security, from global networks to AI products.

  1. 2023 – present

    Chief Technology Officer · CTI (Corporate Tax Incentives)

    Product engineering, architecture, security, IT and AI for a SaaS and compliance-analytics platform serving national clients. Scaled engineering to 40+ developers across three continents, moved releases from every two months to every two weeks, delivered five AI platforms, and led the ISO 27001:2022 migration and SOC 2 Type I/II audits.

  2. 2023 – present

    Fractional CTO · Altruize

    Product and cloud roadmap for a volunteer-hours app on iOS, Android and web, built on a secure, role-based data platform; 4.6-star App Store rating.

  3. 2021 – 2023

    Fractional CTO · Ghostly Kitchen

    Cloud-native microservices platform for multi-unit restaurants on AWS; 1,100+ stories delivered, monthly releases moved to weekly, Square and Toast integrated through REST APIs.

  4. 2018 – 2023

    IT Manager · Vectra AI

    Owned a $3M annual technology budget and a cloud-first, security-by-design roadmap: next-generation firewalls, SASE and automated policy management, plus ITSM, SLA dashboards and a self-service knowledge base.

  5. 2017 – 2020

    Lead Network Engineer · BMC Software

    A global network and security estate of 40 offices and four Tier-III data centers at 99.99% uptime for 6,000+ employees and customer SaaS; mentored a team of nine engineers.

  6. 2016 – 2017

    Network and Telecom Manager · Global Capacity

    Re-engineered the enterprise core network and led a four-site SD-WAN proof of concept.

  7. Earlier

    Founder and CEO · Clarity and XNutrients

    Founded and ran two product companies, electronic magnifiers for people with low vision and a specialty fertilizer business, owning operations, customer support, order systems and all of the technology.

MBA · University of Illinois MS Engineering · University of California, Davis Board member · Altruism Foundation

About

I started as a founder. Clarity built electronic magnifiers that let people losing their sight keep reading on their own, and it taught me that technology succeeds on dignity and ease of use, not on features. I have carried that into every team since.

Today I run technology for a SaaS business and keep my hands in the code: reviewing pull requests, shipping fixes, and building products end to end.

I set high standards, explain tradeoffs to a CEO in two minutes and to an engineer in twenty, and run security as a daily habit rather than a once-a-year scramble.

Outside work I am a forever student, always in the middle of a class, and an aspiring chef. When I can, I am out on the lake near home in Roseville, just outside Sacramento.

Let’s talk

The fastest way to reach me is email. If you would rather pick a time, my calendar is open.