Cade Dannels
DATA ENGINEER & AUTOMATION SPECIALIST
PROFILE
As a Data Engineer and Automation Specialist, Cade helps Level10 CFO and its clients harness business data to surface insights, streamline processes, enhance scalability, and drive better decisions. He does this by connecting data systems and creating data visualizations, and by consulting with multiple levels of the business to identify opportunities to automate repetitive tasks (e.g., accounting, sales/marketing, logistics) by writing code that connects data systems or implementing AI solutions. Since 2018, Cade has gained experience as a Systems Developer, Data Engineer, Data Analyst, and UX/UI Designer/Researcher in financial services, construction, education, and other sectors.
Cade finds a balance between being easygoing and hard-working. He’s proactive and results-driven without taking himself too seriously. He loves hearing that his work has had an impact by helping people anticipate issues, avoid problems, and save time, money, and headaches. To overcome fears about how automation/AI may impact roles, he focuses on helping teams to understand likely benefits, including freeing up time for more engaging work, improving efficiency and scalability, reducing stress, and helping lean teams do more with less.
Cade finds a balance between being easygoing and hard-working. He’s proactive and results-driven without taking himself too seriously. He loves hearing that his work has had an impact by helping people anticipate issues, avoid problems, and save time, money, and headaches. To overcome fears about how automation/AI may impact roles, he focuses on helping teams to understand likely benefits, including freeing up time for more engaging work, improving efficiency and scalability, reducing stress, and helping lean teams do more with less.
EDUCATION
Cade earned his BS in Information Science (Minor in Economics and Business) from the University of Colorado Boulder. He is skilled in Python, PowerBI, web development, machine learning, LLM development, Google Analytics, Excel, natural language processing, and data engineering.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Cade has always been a self-starter whose default is paving his own path. During high school, he learned to build websites and code in Python by taking online classes “for fun.” He avoided typical teenage jobs by becoming an individual bookseller on Amazon, inspired by videos he’d seen on YouTube. By scouring thrift stores for books with high resale value and selling them on Amazon, he ultimately yielded $10k+ in revenues. In college, Cade’s love of coding led to a major in information science and several complementary roles, including grading students’ Python coding work; sales, pitching, and fundraising for an AI-powered startup; web design and development for small businesses; UX/UI design and research for CU Boulder; and assisting Level10 CFO with data analytics projects.
In particular, Cade’s work as a UX/UI Designer and Researcher gave him valuable experience working with a range of business users to understand their needs; creating and leveraging Python scripts and machine learning algorithms to analyze large amounts of data; and designing data-driven prototypes and solutions. Post-college, he spent nearly two years focused on conversion rate optimization (CRO) at a marketing agency, working first as a CRO Analyst and later as a CRO Manager. As his responsibilities skewed toward client relationship management, however, Cade missed being hands-on with the more technical aspects of his work. Eager to return to coding, he accepted a role as a Systems Developer and Data Engineer at a Colorado-based home construction, interior design, and remodeling company, working with users across the business to identify and connect data across systems, visualize the data in Microsoft Power BI, leverage visualizations to surface insights, find opportunities to automate repetitive tasks, and write code to support effective automations. Cade has performed similar work for Level10 CFO since 2020, and is thrilled to expand his work with Level10 and its clients.
In particular, Cade’s work as a UX/UI Designer and Researcher gave him valuable experience working with a range of business users to understand their needs; creating and leveraging Python scripts and machine learning algorithms to analyze large amounts of data; and designing data-driven prototypes and solutions. Post-college, he spent nearly two years focused on conversion rate optimization (CRO) at a marketing agency, working first as a CRO Analyst and later as a CRO Manager. As his responsibilities skewed toward client relationship management, however, Cade missed being hands-on with the more technical aspects of his work. Eager to return to coding, he accepted a role as a Systems Developer and Data Engineer at a Colorado-based home construction, interior design, and remodeling company, working with users across the business to identify and connect data across systems, visualize the data in Microsoft Power BI, leverage visualizations to surface insights, find opportunities to automate repetitive tasks, and write code to support effective automations. Cade has performed similar work for Level10 CFO since 2020, and is thrilled to expand his work with Level10 and its clients.
MORE INFORMATION
When people ask Cade where he’s from, he points to South Carolina, where he spent his formative years. In fact he was born in Kansas, moved to Texas at 3, South Carolina at 11, and Colorado as a high school senior. But Colorado is home now: having married a native of the state, Cade has put down deep roots. In his free time, Cade gets outdoors as often as he can, playing basketball, ultimate frisbee, or pickleball (his current favorite). He also loves traveling. He and his wife recently spent a year living and working abroad with an itinerary that included England, Spain, Portugal, Montenegro, and beyond.