Dana Peele

Technology Executive and Strategic Advisor in Austin, TX/New York, NY

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A pragmatic technology leader with a proven track record across Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups. Currently Director of Engineering at Google, leading the 200 person Compliance and Risk Technology team. Experienced fractional CTO and technical advisor, specializing in scaling companies from concept to late stage and acquisition.

Strategic Value Add

  • Technology Strategy: Expertise in helping non-technical founders make tech decisions that accelerate growth and control costs
  • Scale & Reliability: Specializes in architecting scalable systems that support rapid growth
  • Building Teams: Built and scaled teams from 0 to 200+ engineers

Advisory Experience

Fractional CTO, RefyAI (Pre-Seed)
2024

Innovation Lead, PrivateGPT (Stealth)
2022 - 2024

Fractional CTO, Sproutzo (Seed)
2022 - 2024

Fractional CTO, Chief Data Architect, Meridian Capital Management
2020 - 2022

Founding CTO, OnCall (Acquired by Apploi, Oct 2022)
2019 - 2023

Fractional CTO, Nok Recommerce (Series A)
2019 - 2020

Fractional CTO, Block Renovation (Series C)
2018 - 2020

Executive Experience

Director, Engineering, Risk and Compliance Technology, Google
2022 - Present

Senior Director of Engineering, Grubhub
2017 - 2022

Associate Director of Engineering, Jet.com (Acquired by Walmart, 2016)
2015 - 2017

Key Accomplishments

  • Led innovation for PrivateGPT, AI SaaS platform providing air-gapped RAG LLM
  • Architected and deployed agentic LLM referral tools for RefyAI
  • Led Block Renovation’s technical strategy, scaling the team to 15 and transitioning to permanent leadership
  • Architected and launched the OnCall platform at Apploi, leading to a successful acquisition
  • Built high-throughput systems at Jet.com, processing billions of events daily

Advisory Focus Areas

  • E-commerce platforms
  • B2B SaaS applications
  • Risk and compliance systems
  • Technical due diligence
  • Engineering team development

Leadership Philosophy

  • Pragmatic Technology: Focus on business-driven tech decisions
  • Operational Excellence: Emphasize automated testing and continuous improvement
  • Clear Communication: Translate complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders
  • Risk & Iteration: Balance proactive risk management with rapid development
  • Team Growth: Foster delegation and leadership development

Technology Strategy

Expert in scaling companies while ensuring stability:

  • Architecture and infrastructure optimization
  • Build vs. buy decisions
  • Quality automation
  • Cross-functional alignment