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Tomer Gal @tomerwave
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R&D Advisory

R&D Advisory & Fractional VP R&D

Your engineering team grew, but delivery got slower. I help figure out why, what actually needs to change, and what can wait. Hire a fractional VP R&D for the months you need one, without the full-time hire.

R&D Health Check Or just book a call
Who this is for
Founders and CTOs at seed to Series A, usually somewhere between five and twenty-five engineers. Or earlier, when there's nobody senior enough to push back on the technical calls and a full-time VP doesn't make sense yet. I'm based in Israel and work with teams here and remotely across Europe and the US.
The reason people call

This sounds familiar if…

  • Engineering feels slower than it should, and nobody can say exactly why.
  • The team grew quickly. The structure around it didn't.
  • You're the bottleneck. Decisions wait for you.
  • Delivery is inconsistent. Some quarters land, some don't.
  • Ownership is unclear, and work falls between people.
  • Technical debt has stopped being theoretical.
  • You're starting to wonder whether it's time to hire a VP R&D.

One or two of these is normal. Four or five usually means the cause sits underneath all of them.

How this works

How I help

Two shapes, and most engagements move between them. Advisory is the lighter one: we talk regularly, you bring the hard calls, I help you make them and tell you when I think you're wrong.

Embedded is the heavier one. I take the VP R&D seat part-time: strategy, architecture, hiring, delivery, and the day-to-day of a team that ships. Until you're ready to fill the seat properly, or until you decide you don't need to yet.

Most teams don't need more process. They need clearer ownership and fewer people waiting on one person.

R&D Health Check

Start with an R&D Health Check

A short, focused look at how engineering actually works here. Not an audit in the uncomfortable sense. I talk to people, read some code, watch how work moves, and tell you what I see.

What I look at

  • Team structure and who owns what
  • How work moves from idea to production
  • Delivery: what ships, what slips, and why
  • Architecture at a high level
  • Technical debt that's costing you now
  • Tooling and the friction around it
  • Hiring, seniority gaps, and what you're missing
  • Engineering culture, as practiced rather than as written

What you get back

  • What's working, and worth protecting.
  • The biggest problems, and why they're happening. The cause rather than the symptom.
  • What to fix in what order.
  • What to change over the next 30, 60, and 90 days.
How long
One to two weeks
Language
English or Hebrew
Where
Tel Aviv, or remote

No price listed, because the scope varies more than I'd like to pretend. Tell me your team size and what's hurting, and I'll give you a number.

Start with a conversation Or read the one-pager (PDF)
After that

Where this usually goes.

Some people take the assessment and run it themselves, which is a perfectly good outcome. Most ask me to stay for the parts that are hardest to do alone: the hiring, the reorganizing, and the architecture decision sitting underneath all of it.

That usually turns into a fractional VP R&D arrangement, or standing advisory.

Not ready to talk

Take the letter instead.

One short idea a week about exactly this, plus two or three things worth reading. Read the last few first if you would rather see what arrives before deciding.

Off the clock

I've written about this.

Not marketing pieces. Just the parts I was still thinking about after work.

Aug 2026What a Fractional VP R&D Actually Does in the First 30 DaysWhat the first month actually looks like, what deliberately does not happen in it, and how to run most of it yourself before hiring anybody.Aug 2026Your CTO Is Becoming a Bottleneck. What Now?Four different things get called a CTO bottleneck, and they have different fixes. How to tell which one you have, and how to have the conversation.Jul 2026Why Engineering Teams Get Slower as They GrowYou doubled the team and shipped less. Eight causes that look identical from outside, how to tell which one you have, and roughly what each costs to fix.
Show 4 moreShow fewer
Jun 2026When Should a Startup Hire a VP R&D?The signals that a startup needs a VP R&D, the ones that only look like it, and the difference between a VP, an engineering manager and a CTO who is stretched.Jul 2024Mastering Employee Onboarding: Strategies for a Smooth StartHiring is the easy half. This is the other half.Mar 2023How to Effectively Manage Remote Development TeamsRemote does not break a team. It removes the accidental communication that was covering for unclear ownership. Six practices, and how to tell the difference.Mar 202310 Tips for Effective Mentoring of Junior DevelopersOn closing seniority gaps without slowing everyone down.

All of the writing

Not quite it?

Two other things I get called about.

ArchitectureA decision is coming that's hard to undo.AI & AutomationToo much of the work is still manual.

All four, and where they overlap

Contact

Tell me what's going on.

A few sentences is plenty. What's happening, roughly how big the team or organization is, and the thing you'd fix first if you had the time.

tomer.wave@gmail.comLet’s talk