My Profile

Solving complex business problems with data, analytics, and AI — grounded in reality, not illusion.

I lead critical decisions in complex environments, where strategy, data, and reality are misaligned.

Dave solved a business problem with Vibe Analytics in a few hours what we had been struggling with for months. He is a rare combination of technical depth, business acumen, and strategic thinking.

— VP, Public Policy, Nemours Children's Hospital

Who I Am

I am a Principal Engineer and former CTO who delivers business outcomes for customers using data, analytics, and AI.

I am a firm believer in using human-centric, empathetic Design Thinking and Rapid Prototyping to understand the business problem before throwing technology at it. I call this approach Modern Data Ethos, which leverages Vibe Analytics. Read about my approach

Dave Wentzel
Design Thinking workshop example
A Design Thinking Session with Dave

How I Think

Business decisions don't fail because of a lack of information.

They fail because decisions are made based on poor assumptions about the data, ambiguity, and false certainty.

My Modern Data Ethos and Vibe Analytics approach helps to make better decisions.

In the Era of AI, IT budgets are moving out of IT and back into the business units. As a result of that, there are challenges to both IT and the Lines of Business the speak each other's language. I specialize in bringing business acumen to IT groups and help business units with their AI initiatives.

How I help customers think differently

1. Using Design Thinking techniques, understand the business problem(s) and the personas we are solving for.

2. Rapid prototyping using Vibe Analytics approaches.

3. Get the stakeholders to YES. I want the stakeholders to agree with the approach and solution and fund the capital project.

4. NOW we figure out the tech choices based on the business problem and the non-functional requirements.

5. Continue iterating.

What I Deliver

Better thinking. Better tech choices. Better outcomes — grounded in business, people, and technology.

Data & AI strategy

Understanding how to structure an analytics environment in the Era of AI that delivers more than just another dashboard. This is more than deploying a data lake. It is a mindset shift.

Technical leadership

I help analytics teams actually BUILD analytics ecosystems and Agentic AI solutions.

Applied Technical Experience

My technical experience is practical and hands-on. From data science skills with Spark and python, to architecture skills with Azure and MS Fabric, I have built solutions that work.

Unlike many technologists, I have the ability to connect the technical execution with business outcomes.

I have a strong foundation in data science, data engineering, architecture, and analytics.

  • Data & AI

    • Databricks
    • Spark
    • Python
    • SQL
    • Applied GenAI

  • Platforms

    • Azure
    • Kubernetes
    • Linux

  • Analytics & BI

    • Power BI
    • Fabric
    • Spark
    • Jupyter

  • Databases

    • Oracle
    • SQL Server
    • Vertica
    • Snowflake

  • Tools

    • VS Code
    • Claude Code
    • Jupyter

  • GenAI Tools

    • GPT
    • skill.md
    • github copilot
View Technical Portfolio