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[00]ProfileNow · Taxwellopen to · advisory / fractional / consulting

Russ Bradberry

VP, Data, Analytics & AI · San Diego · 25+ years

Over 25 years of experience across data engineering, analytics, software engineering and cloud platforms, 10+ of them in senior leadership. I modernize legacy data estates into platforms the business trusts and turn data strategy into numbers on the P&L.

At Taxwell I lead the Data AI initiatives, the AI practice inside the data organization: an AI-native data team that works in Data AI-DLC, with AI in the loop from model design to monitoring. The fraud models that catch 75× more fraud at 99% confidence, with single-digit false positives, came out of that practice.

Available for advisory, fractional and consulting engagements.

now
VP, Data & Analytics Engineering @ Taxwell
team
AI-native data team · Data AI-DLC
open to
advisory · fractional · consulting
experience
25+ yrs · 10+ in senior leadership
service
US Navy, 2000–2006 · veteran
founded
SimpleReach → acquired by Nativo, 2019
patents
2 · 2015, 2022
book
Practical Cassandra · Pearson, 2013
LinkedInGitHub
subject · rb
32.7° N 117.2° W
Russ Bradberry
Russ Bradberrydata · analytics · ai
[01]Numbers

Outcomes, not activity.

  • saved in the first month

    $1.8M

    annualized; AWS optimization + legacy hardware retired

    Taxwell
  • more fraud caught

    75×

    at 99% confidence, single-digit false positives; rules → ML

    Taxwell
  • daily analytics users

    25→125+

    Tableau → Sigma, plus several hundred on Snowflake

    Taxwell
  • saved, Redshift → Snowflake

    ~$1M/yr

    cloud warehouse migration; later −30% on Snowflake spend

    Thrasio
  • 3B events a day

    1 PB

    the data business, from inception to petabyte scale

    SimpleReach
  • source tables modeled

    9,000+

    one dimensional model across the company

    Thrasio
[02]Timeline

The Navy, then five companies.

  1. 2024 — nowNowDallas, TX · remote

    Taxwell

    VP, Data & Analytics Engineering

    • Turned a marketing-ingestion team into an end-to-end data organization serving nearly every department, moved the platform from AWS Glue ETL to Fivetran, dbt, Snowflake and Sigma at five-minute freshness, and saved ~$1.8M a year within the first month.
    • Leads the Data AI initiatives and their development, with an AI-native data team working in Data AI-DLC; applied AI and machine learning capabilities within the data platform and fraud domains to improve automation, scalability and decision quality: 75× more fraud caught at 99% confidence, with single-digit false positives.
  2. 2021 — 2024Walpole, MA · remote

    Thrasio

    Senior Director, Data & Software Engineering

    • Built and led five teams (23 people, four managers) across data engineering, the warehouse, ML Ops and marketing software, with a warehouse-first modern data stack.
    • Moved Redshift to Snowflake (~$1M a year saved), cut Snowflake spend a further 30%, and directed a dimensional model over 9,000+ source tables.
  3. 2019 — 2021Los Angeles, CA · remote

    Nativo

    VP, Engineering

    • Led Nativo IQ, the SaaS analytics division, after the SimpleReach acquisition: cut the SimpleReach platform’s operating cost 20% and carried its customers across, adding $1M+ in revenue.
    • Co-designed Nativo Edge Analytics; co-inventor on the resulting patent (2022).
  4. 2010 — 2019New York, NY

    SimpleReach

    Co-founder · CTO / Chief Architect

    • Scaled the data business from inception to 1 PB and 3B+ events a day; acquired by Nativo in 2019.
    • Built and ran engineering, data science and customer solutions on a $5M+ annual budget; moved releases from biweekly to several a day and negotiated an AWS enterprise agreement that saved $1M+ over three years.
  5. 2006 — 2010San Diego, CA

    eJungle

    Director, Engineering & Network Services

    • Grew hosting revenue 200%+ at 99.999% network uptime, turning a loss-making hosting line profitable at $30K+ a month.
    • New network-services revenue lines lifted company revenue 20%; clients included Jenny Craig, SDSU and the University of San Diego.
  6. 2000 — 2006

    United States Navy

    Veteran

    • Six years of service before a career in data and software.
[03]Work & words

A book, two patents, a driver.

[04]Stack

Tools I have run in production.

Warehouse & lake
  • Snowflake
  • Redshift
  • Vertica
  • Databricks
  • Athena
  • PrestoDB
Transform & orchestrate
  • dbt
  • Fivetran
  • Airflow
  • Prefect
  • Spark
  • Celery
Streams
  • Kafka
  • Kinesis
  • NSQ
  • RabbitMQ
  • SQS
  • Logstash
Stores
  • Cassandra / DSE
  • Elasticsearch
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • MongoDB
  • DynamoDB
BI & ML
  • Sigma
  • Tableau
  • Machine learning
  • AI in the data platform
Data AI
  • Data AI-DLC
  • LLM-assisted data engineering & analytics
  • ML fraud models
  • Agentic workflows
Languages & infra
  • SQL
  • Python
  • Go
  • Node.js
  • Ruby
  • Java
  • Terraform
  • Docker
  • AWS
[05]Work with me

Advisory, fractional, consulting.

Alongside the day job, a few engagements at a time.

  • [01]Data platform modernization

    Legacy ETL to modern ELT on Fivetran, dbt and Snowflake; Redshift → Snowflake with ~$1M a year saved.

  • [02]Fractional data & engineering leadership

    Building and running data orgs: five teams and 23 people at Thrasio; VP and CTO seats since 2010.

  • [03]Analytics & Data AI strategy

    From data that informs decisions to data that drives them; fraud ML that catches 75× more at 99% confidence.

  • [04]Data AI adoption for data teams

    Data AI-DLC in data engineering and analytics teams: tooling, guardrails, review practice, measurable throughput, AI in the loop from model design to monitoring; evangelism that sticks.

  • [05]Cloud cost & vendor negotiation

    ~$1.8M a year saved within a first month; a $5M AWS enterprise agreement negotiated, $1M+ saved over three years.

  • On LinkedIn as

    Business Analytics · Data Reporting · SaaS Development · Database Development · Team Building · Leadership Development · Business Consulting

Selected engagements

  • USPTO · patent storage & search redesign on Apache Cassandra
  • Mymee · health and wellness startup
  • Bond Sports · sports facility booking startup
  • Playsmint LLC · job placement for veterans
  • Track1099 · 1099 tax-filing company
[06]Contact

Start a conversation.

open channel
email · linkedin · github

Russ Bradberry

Advisory, fractional or consulting work on data platforms, analytics and AI. Email is best; LinkedIn and GitHub work too.

LinkedInGitHub · devdazed