Dave Feldman

Multidisciplinary product design leader with 25y experience. I bring people and ideas together to make great products happen. I value pragmatism, compassion, and humor and believe a healthy team is one of the most durable things we can build. I've worked as designer, PM, and executive at a range of companies, leading teams of up to 14 people. I've founded two startups. I try not to take myself too seriously, and sometimes succeed.
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Experience

Prisma

Berlin, Germany

2023-2024

VP Product

Prisma simplifies working with databases and produces the #1 ORM for Node and the TypeScript world. As VP Product I manage our product team, strategy, design, and process as we evolve our platform of paid services.

Product Leadership Consulting

2022-2023

Product-leadership and design consulting for a variety of startups: team and process assessment, fractional executive leadership, mentorship, and hands-on design & strategy.

Miter, Inc.

San Francisco

2020-2022

CEO & Founder

Miter built a SaaS product to improve internal meetings via targeted applications of behavioral science. As CEO & founder I served as product lead, CTO, and designer; led fundraising efforts; hired and managed a team; and wrote ~60% of the codebase. We raised pre-seed funding in 2021. Ultimately we disproved our hypothesis and discontinued operation in 2022.

Heap, Inc.

San Francisco

2018-2020

VP Design, Interim VP Product

Heap provides behavioral analytics to product teams. As the first VP Design, I built the design practice from zero as the company grew from Series B to D. Worked hands-on initially while hiring. Drove the creation of pragmatic processes to ensure effective translation of customer problems into code. Refreshed the brand & website. Improved usability, overhauled look & feel. Participated in weekly executive team meetings. Served as interim VP Product from June - Dec 2019, managing both the design and PM teams.

Facebook, Inc.

Menlo Park, CA

2016-2017

Product Design Manager, Messenger Developer Platform

Led Product Design for the Messenger Platform, Messenger Games, and Messenger Monetization. Managed a team of designers. Worked closely with Partnerships and platform developers to understand what they needed from a messaging platform. Evolved and expanded developer docs, and drove the creation of open-source templates for common bot flows.

Google, Inc.

Mountain View, CA

2014-2016

Product Manager, Search

Product Manager for a stealth AI project in Search focused on Machine Learning and mobile devices. Definitely not a self-riding tricycle or wearables for gerbils.

Product Design Manager for Gmail & Inbox

Led the Product Design team for Gmail and Inbox by Gmail. Managed 10-15 designers and researchers in Mountain View and Zurich. Rebuilt the team. Helped drive the product strategy for Inbox following its initial launch.

Emu Messenger

Palo Alto, CA

2012-2014

Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer

Messaging startup funded by Kleiner Perkins, Triplepoint, DFJ, and Menlo Ventures. Acquired by Google in 2014. Emu was texting with a built-in assistant: a machine-learning system that detected the intent of conversations and matched them with useful information from your life and the internet. We combined smart technology — AI, natural language processing, contextual awareness — with efficient, elegant UX. As CPO I served as product lead, designer, and front-end engineer. Also I made the coffee sometimes.

CrunchFund

San Francisco

2012

Entrepreneur in Residence

Served as CrunchFund's sole EIR while exploring startups and searching for co-founders. As EIR, I sat in on startup pitches, provided a product-centric perspective on potential investments, and served as interim product lead for one of CrunchFund's companies.

AOL

Palo Alto, CA

2010-2012

Senior Director, Product Management

Worked across AOL to improve overall product quality. Managed the 2011 relaunch of TechCrunch.com, which was successful in nearly doubling page-views per visitor. Redesigned AOL's employee phonebook as a social network, increasing cross-team communication and modernizing a core component of the AOL intranet. Managed one employee, mentored several. Received AOL's prestigious Blue Monster award and the Consumer Applications Group's Playing Offense award.

Yahoo! Inc.

Sunnyvale, CA

2007-2010

Director, User Experience Design (2009-2010)

Led the design team for Yahoo! Messenger—then the largest instant messaging service in the US—through several product launches, including a web-based chat widget and Yahoo! Messenger 10 for Windows.

Helped craft product strategy for Yahoo's communication and social products, including participating in ongoing planning and creating product concepts.As a member of the Emerging Markets team, joined ongoing strategy conversations and participated in ethnographic research in India and Brazil.

Sr. UX Designer (2007-2008)

Designed the UX for Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista, a new client application built on Microsoft's then-new WPF/.NET 3.0 technologies. Won Yahoo's Purple Design Award.Designed and co-product-managed Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone. Within a month of its release, it became the #1 free social networking app on iTunes and was featured by Apple.

Designed a user-centric client/server design for the interactions among simultaneous IM sessions.

Freelance

Cambridge, USA

2000-2007

Product Design & Strategy Consultant

Performed freelance UX, visual design, product strategy, and front-end engineering work for a variety of clients. Work included high-level whiteboard conversations about product strategy; evaluations of existing projects for usability and appropriateness to target audience; information architecture for new or redesigned products; wireframes and mockups; logo design; interactive prototypes; and occasionally front-end HTML.

TextWise, LLC

Syracuse, NY

1997

Internship - Design & Engineering

Hybrid corporate-academic environment associated with Syracuse University. Designed information-retrieval, visualization, and collaboration experiences. Implemented in Java.

Microsoft Corporation

Redmond, WA

1996

Internship - Engineering

Software Engineering internship on the Visual Studio team. Worked in C++ with Microsoft’ OLE.

Education

Harvard University

1994-1998

AB, Computer Science

Relevant Coursework: Cognitive Psychology; Technological Tools for Learning; Behavior, Learning, and Choice; Computer Graphics; Architectural History; Face Perception; Artificial Intelligence; Abnormal Psychology; Data Structures and Algorithms; Music Theory; Intellectual History

Extracurricular Activities: Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan Players 1995-1998: Board of Directors; Publicity Director; Set Designer; Technical Director; Stage Manager; Makeup Designer; Musician, Harvard Din & Tonics, 1994-1995

University of Maryland

College Park, MD

1998-1999

Faculty Research Assistant, Human-Computer Interaction Lab

6 month appointment: Assisted with design work on the HCIL web site. Wrote a paper for conference submission with other HCIL members. Designed and implemented visualization software, including tools a major online legal information provider. Created the Web site for a zooming graphical Java toolkit using DHTML. Designed a zooming presentation tool.

Cornell University

Ithaca, NY

1998

Research Associate, Human-Computer Interaction Group

Internship. Designed and made design recommendations for several media-rich software environments. Designs included a digital library for secondary schools; a collaborative World Wide Web annotation tool; and an interactive handheld assistant for a greenhouse. Conducted usability evaluations of software and research, including an evaluation for Searcher magazine. Led software design sessions with children. Co-authored a paper on mobile technology.

Ithaca High School

1991-1994

High School Degree

Went to high school and graduated from it.