Technical Director · OTT & Streaming

Dave
Westhead

I lead the engineering behind live and on-demand streaming platforms.

I lead the engineering and architecture teams who build OTT and streaming platforms for clients such as Bell Media, Rogers, BritBox International, Bouygues Telecom and Dyn Media, as well as previous clients like BeIN. I’ve been building software and running engineering teams for over 20 years, and these days most of my time goes on multi-timezone teams, governance, and making sure we ship the right thing.

See the work Get in touch
Dave Westhead
£21mRevenue delivered annually at Deltatre
55–64%Gross margins maintained
Right now

Technical Director at Deltatre, leading a 70-person team delivering streaming platforms for clients in North America and Europe.

Currently delivering Rogers Sportsnet+
35%Team velocity uplift at RAC in 9 months
£650mMoD contract architected
About

Platform delivery for global clients

I’m a Technical Director at Deltatre. I’m accountable for £21m of annual revenue across streaming platforms in North America and Europe, at gross margins of 55–64%. I lead the 70-person engineering team that delivers them, which means governing architecture, bringing in product models, coaching people and making delivery calls across several timezones and clients.

I started out hands-on. Over 15 years I’ve led, architected and built web, desktop and mobile applications, mostly on the Microsoft stack with some AWS and MongoDB. I’ve stayed close to the engineering since moving into leadership, which helps when you’re setting direction for a team of engineers.

Outside Deltatre, I’m Chair of the Board of Trustees at Fireworks, a Staffordshire charity supporting children’s mental and emotional health. I do that job the way I do any senior role, by helping the people doing the work to do it well. I’m also Vice Chair of the C.C. Walker Charity, which gives financial grants to disadvantaged children in the local area to support their schooling.

I’m also Chair of Chase Harriers Road Running Club, and I run distance events, ultras and the odd marathon.

Technical Director, OTTDeltatre
MSc Digital Technology (Enterprise Architecture)Northumbria University
TOGAF 9.2 PractitionerNorthumbria University
BSc (Hons) Computer ScienceUniversity of Wolverhampton
Foundation Certificate in IT Service ManagementISEB
Lean Six Sigma Yellow BeltProcess improvement and operational efficiency
Career

Where I’ve been

I went from hands-on .NET development to leading multi-timezone engineering teams, with defence contracts, automotive digital and streaming media along the way.

2023 – Present

Deltatre

Technical Director, OTT

I’m accountable for £21m in annual revenue across several client streaming platforms in North America and Europe, with gross margins of 55–64%. I lead a 70-person engineering organisation covering technical implementation, governance and product model adoption. Infrastructure optimisation I drove saved £1.2m a year. I coach and mentor distributed teams across timezones and make delivery decisions under commercial and client pressure.

2019 – 20223 yrs 2 mos

RAC

Head of Digital Development & Delivery · 2021 – 2022

Led 50+ FTEs across development, testing, and delivery, overseeing eight product squads delivering over £5m in annual revenue. Improved team velocity by 35% in nine months through process refinement and culture change. Delivered Rescue Me, which handled 30% of all breakdowns digitally and avoided 300k calls annually.

Solution Architect · 2019 – 2021

Designed Azure-based microservice architecture for key products, including the original Rescue Me platform. Established peer review processes and architecture governance workflows across Operations and Roadside divisions.

2016 – 20193 yrs

Briggs Equipment UK Ltd

Solution Architect (MoD Bid Secondment) · 2017 – 2019

Led IT strategy and governance for a £650m Ministry of Defence contract. IT Solution Architect on the MITER bid, covering solution design, vendor assessment, third-party integration, and working with the bid team through submission.

Lead Developer · 2016 – 2019

Delivered multiple projects across business units including MoD, using ASP.NET MVC, RESTful APIs, and broker services. Introduced governance frameworks and change management processes, improving delivery consistency.

Other roles

RoleCompanyDates
Application ArchitectPolice Mutual Assurance Society2015 – 2016
Dynamics CRM DeveloperTechnology Management2012 – 2013
Senior DeveloperHydrop ECS2011 – 2012
Analyst DeveloperMidlands Co-operative Society2009 – 2011
Web Systems DeveloperSerco (Defence Academy)2008 – 2009
Mobile DeveloperCMS Global Technologies2006 – 2008
Analyst ProgrammerVivista2005 – 2006
Work

Platforms I’ve delivered

Ten platforms across streaming, defence, digital and enterprise, from £21m of annual OTT revenue to 300k calls a year avoided at the RAC and a £650m MoD programme. Open any case study to read more.

LiveJun 2026 – Present

Rogers Sportsnet+

Rogers · via Deltatre

Delivering Sportsnet+ to Canada, covering all major sports with a focus on baseball, the MLB regular season and World Series, and ice hockey, with puck drop and exclusive streams not available on cable.

Sportsnet+MLBNHLCanada
Case study

Challenge

Serving sports fans across Canada. The baseball regular season and World Series create big peaks, and hockey fans expect puck drop on time and exclusive streams they can’t get on cable.

My contribution

Technical leadership of the Sportsnet+ delivery for Rogers: architecture governance, delivery management and client stakeholder management.

Reach

Rogers reported the 2025 World Series averaged 7.5 million viewers in Canada, with 23 million tuning in at some point. Game 7 averaged 10.9 million across Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ and Citytv, the most-watched Rogers broadcast ever. These are combined audiences across Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ and Citytv, not Sportsnet+ alone.

DeliveredNov 2025 – Jul 2026

Bell Media Sports Evolution

Bell Media · via Deltatre

Building and delivering the new TSN and RDS consumer applications across AndroidTV, FireTV, Samsung, Hisense, Roku, TvOS, Xbox, and LG, timed to align with FIFA World Cup 2026. Technical leadership of all work streams, client stakeholder management, and keeping governance on track to a hard deadline.

TSNRDSFIFA World Cup 2026AndroidTV
Case study

Challenge

Deliver consumer apps on eight platforms in time for FIFA World Cup 2026. The broadcast rights were fixed, so the ship date was too.

My contribution

Technical leadership of all workstreams: architecture, delivery governance, cross-functional coordination, and direct client stakeholder management with Bell Media.

Outcome

Delivered for FIFA World Cup 2026 across TSN and RDS, on all eight platforms and on time.

DeliveredApr 2025 – Nov 2025

Rogers CityTV+

Rogers · via Deltatre

Platform delivery of linear and VOD entertainment channels for a wide Canadian audience, including Discovery, FX, ID, Food Network, Bravo, HGTV, Magnolia Network, Motor Trend, SCI, Cooking Channel, and OWN.

LinearVODArchitecture GovernanceCanada
Case study

Challenge

Delivering across 11+ channels at once, linear and VOD, while keeping quality up as the volume grew.

My contribution

Architecture governance, delivery management across several workstreams, and keeping technical decisions consistent across the channel portfolio.

Outcome

Delivered across the CityTV+ portfolio between April and November 2025, on schedule and within margin.

DeliveredApr 2024 – Jul 2026

Bell Media: Crave & CTV

Bell Media · via Deltatre

Platform delivery supporting Crave and CTV for entertainment subscribers across Canada, covering multi-channel engineering, operational support and stakeholder management across Bell Media’s premium entertainment properties.

CraveCTVEntertainmentMulti-channel
Case study

Challenge

Keeping Crave and CTV running well across multiple channels, with client relationships that needed regular technical and strategic alignment.

My contribution

Platform engineering oversight, live operational support, and Bell Media stakeholder management as part of Deltatre’s £21m annual portfolio.

Outcome

Stable, high-margin delivery across Bell Media’s premium properties from April 2024 to July 2026.

DeliveredApr 2024 – Jul 2026

Dyn Media

Dyn Media · via Deltatre

Build and ongoing operation of the OTT streaming platform for Handball, Basketball, Table Tennis, Field Hockey, and Volleyball in the German market.

OTTGermanySports StreamingPlatform Build
Case study

Challenge

Build a new OTT platform from scratch for a streaming service entering the German market across five sports disciplines, then operate it at scale.

My contribution

Platform build from initial architecture and technical design through to live operation, owning the full technical lifecycle of the product.

Outcome

Live in the German market from 2024, streaming Handball, Basketball, Table Tennis, Field Hockey and Volleyball.

DeliveredJan 2023 – Apr 2024

BritBox International

BBC & ITV · via Deltatre

Delivery of BBC and ITV content to subscribers in the US, Canada, Nordics, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Platform engineering, architecture governance and operational support across six territories, as part of the Deltatre portfolio behind the £21m annual revenue.

BBC / ITVGlobalSVOD6 Territories
Case study

Challenge

Maintain a consistent subscriber experience for two of the UK’s biggest broadcasters across six countries, each with different regulatory, rights, and technical requirements.

My contribution

Platform engineering, architecture governance, and operational support across all six territories. One of the first major programmes I ran as Technical Director.

Outcome

Stable multi-territory SVOD delivery that contributed to the £21m annual revenue. I moved onto other portfolio work in 2024.

DeliveredFeb 2020 – Aug 2022

Digital Breakdown

RAC

Designed and delivered in the first response to Covid, then evolved with a product and agile mindset into a permanent platform. It handled 30% of all RAC breakdowns digitally, avoiding 300k calls a year and cutting costs.

Agile / ProductRoadsideDigital Transformation
Case study

Challenge

Covid hit in February 2020. RAC needed to digitise roadside breakdown reporting fast: call centres couldn’t operate normally, and members still needed help.

My contribution

Designed and delivered the initial platform under crisis conditions, then led its evolution into a permanent service using product and agile thinking. Drove a 35% improvement in team velocity within 9 months.

Outcome

30% of all RAC breakdowns handled digitally and 300,000+ calls avoided a year. What began as a Covid response is now part of how RAC operates.

DeliveredSep 2016 – Aug 2019

Briggs Defence

Briggs Equipment · MoD

Portal for the Defence Mechanical Handling Equipment contract, part of a £650m Ministry of Defence programme. Integration via brokers into existing ERP systems. Introduced governance frameworks and change management processes that improved delivery cadence across the programme.

Ministry of DefenceERP IntegrationHigh Compliance
Case study

Challenge

Build and integrate a portal for the MoD’s Defence Mechanical Handling Equipment contract within a £650m programme. Strict compliance, a complex ERP landscape and little room for slippage.

My contribution

Architecture, broker-based ERP integration design, and establishing the governance frameworks and change management processes the programme needed to move with confidence.

Outcome

Delivered within programme parameters. Governance improvements had a measurable impact on delivery cadence across the wider £650m contract.

DeliveredDec 2017 – Aug 2019

MITER Bid Team

Briggs Equipment · MoD

Working with a bid team to define the IT solution for the MITER bid encompassing Mechanical Handling, Construction Equipment, and Protected Engineering for the Ministry of Defence.

Bid ArchitectureMinistry of DefenceSolution Design
Case study

Challenge

Define a credible, deliverable IT solution for a complex multi-scope MoD bid covering three equipment categories, with the technical architecture as a key factor in winning.

My contribution

Full solution architecture for the bid: technical design, integration approach, and the documentation the bid team and evaluators needed.

Outcome

Provided the IT solution for a competitive MoD bid submission within the defence mechanical handling programme.

DeliveredMay 2015 – Sep 2016

Options ISA: ESB / AX

Police Mutual

Enterprise Service Bus implementation based on RabbitMQ, with integration into a Microsoft Dynamics deployment for financial services operations.

RabbitMQESBMicrosoft DynamicsFinancial Services
Case study

Challenge

Police Mutual needed a reliable integration layer between their new Microsoft Dynamics deployment and existing financial services operations, without disrupting live financial processing.

My contribution

ESB implementation using RabbitMQ, integration design into Microsoft Dynamics, and ensuring the messaging architecture was robust enough for financial services requirements.

Outcome

A working integration layer for Police Mutual’s financial services operations, delivered in a regulated environment.

Personal

What I build for myself

Side projects outside client work: tools and sites for clubs and charities that I built because they were needed.

Race Calendar

race-calendar.co.uk ↗

Race discovery platform for Chase Harriers members. Find races from 5k to ultramarathon, share events with the club, add race reports, photos, and ratings. Built with Claude Code, CI/CD via GitHub Actions, with Atlassian integration to auto-publish architecture documentation and product roadmap.

Live

Fireworks Charity Website

fireworks.charity ↗

Custom website for Fireworks, the Staffordshire charity supporting children’s mental and emotional health. Built to give the charity a proper online presence.

Live

Team of Daves

teamofdaves.com ↗

This site: my professional portfolio, a single page hosted on Firebase. I built it end to end with Claude Code. It started as an experiment in AI-assisted development and ended up as the finished site.

Live

Westy Runs

westy-runs.web.app ↗

Tracks my running journey, from training to races. A web app I built for myself, hosted on Firebase.

Live

Chase Harriers Website

chaseharriers.org ↗

Club website for Chase Harriers Road Running Club. Currently WordPress. I’m planning a rebuild to modernise the stack and bring it in line with the Race Calendar platform.

Rebuild planned

Strava Gamification Platform

Not yet public

Automating the Strava API for Chase Harriers to introduce gamification and community challenges. Leaderboards and progress tracking against club goals, to add a bit of friendly competition to a long season.

In design

Charity Funding Tool

Not yet public

A tool to help charities find and apply for grants and funding. It covers finding opportunities, tracking application deadlines on a shared calendar, and maintaining reusable application pack templates.

In design
Capabilities

What I bring

Technical depth, leadership and delivery experience from streaming media, defence, automotive digital and enterprise.

OTT & Streaming Platform Leadership

Technical direction for multi-client streaming platforms, covering architecture governance, product adoption and live operational support, for clients including Bell Media, Rogers and Dyn Media.

Enterprise Architecture (TOGAF)

TOGAF 9.2 Practitioner with an MSc in Enterprise Architecture. I use it for complex system design, vendor assessment and architectural governance in large organisations.

Engineering Leadership at Scale

I’m a manager of managers. I led teams of up to 50 FTEs at RAC and now run distributed, multi-timezone engineering teams at Deltatre. I care as much about team health as I do about delivery cadence.

AI-Augmented Delivery

Using AI and agentic workflows in engineering delivery, from code generation to automated review cycles, on real delivery work.

.NET / Cloud Engineering

Hands-on background in .NET, ASP.NET MVC, RESTful APIs and broker/ESB patterns, plus AWS and MongoDB. I know what I’m asking my engineers to do because I’ve done it myself.

Senior Stakeholder Management

I work directly with C-suite and client stakeholders, and I’ve spent years explaining engineering trade-offs in business terms to media rights holders, government bodies and consumer brands.

How I work

Principles over process

Process is a means to an end. These are the things I believe in, whatever methodology is on the wall.

1

Keep things moving

The biggest risk on any project is inertia. I make decisions, raise blockers early and manage momentum deliberately. With commercial pressure and the client watching, you can’t afford to stall.

2

Lead from the front

I don’t run teams from a distance. When the pressure is on, I’m close to the work, visible to the engineers and accountable for the outcome. People work better when they know their lead understands what’s going on.

3

Outcomes over ceremony

I’ve seen enough agile transformations to know the ceremonies aren’t what matters. The outcome is. I focus on faster feedback and keeping delivery visible, and I’d rather ship something good enough than stall chasing perfect.

4

Build teams that can handle it

The best investment I make is in people. Teams that understand the context, own their work and don’t need hand-holding on every decision deliver under pressure. They take time to build, but nothing else scales.

Community

Beyond the day job

Trustee roles, volunteering and running for charity. I bring the same approach as at work: be accountable and help other people do their best.

Chair of Board of Trustees

Fireworks Charity

A Staffordshire based registered charity working in primary and secondary schools, supporting young people in their mental and emotional health through singing, signing and mindfulness. Children and young people face a lot of pressure today, and confidence and resilience can be built. As Chair of the Board of Trustees I oversee governance and help the people doing the work to do it well.

fireworks.charity ↗
Trustee & Vice Chair

C.C. Walker Charity

A grant-making charity supporting children and young people under 25 in Walsall who need help with education or training. Priority is given to those who have lost one or both parents and have a connection to the Borough of Walsall. As a Trustee and Vice Chair, I contribute to grant decisions, governance, and the charity’s long-term direction.

Alongside my trustee roles, I regularly volunteer at events, marshalling, timing and helping with whatever is needed. parkrun is the free, weekly, timed 5k run, which is run entirely by volunteers; I marshal, scan and help keep things moving. I also volunteer at Runthrough events, one of the UK’s largest running event series, to help runners have a good race day, from registration to the finish line.

Raising money through miles

~£5,000 raised to date

Marathons, ultras and long days out in the countryside, all for charity.

London Marathon 2026
TCS London Marathon 2026Fireworks Charity

26.2 miles through London for Fireworks, with Tower Bridge in the sunshine.

Race to the Stones 50k 2025
Race to the Stones 50k, 2025Rotherham Hospice

50 kilometres along the Ridgeway in the summer heat, run for Rotherham Hospice.

Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon 2024
Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon, 2024Fireworks Charity

A full marathon through Leeds, finishing at Headingley, named in honour of rugby league legend Rob Burrow. I ran it with Charlotte, my partner.

TCS London Marathon 2023
TCS London Marathon 2023Leonard Cheshire

26.2 miles for Leonard Cheshire, which supports disabled people to live, learn and work as independently as they choose. It rained, but it didn’t spoil the day.

Get in touch

If you want to talk about OTT platform delivery, engineering leadership or AI-assisted development, drop me a line.

Email me LinkedIn