Jamie Briens
Fractional CTO / Technology Consultant
Based in United Kingdom · 20+ years experience
Summary
Fractional CTO helping businesses scale through workflow automation and infrastructure. 20 years at DNEG and other studios building pipelines for films like Avengers: Endgame. Open to any industry.
About
I help businesses scale by improving how their work gets done. I look at the workflows teams rely on, find the bottlenecks and repetitive steps, and replace them with automation and systems that grow with the business.
I spent most of my career in film visual effects. There, workflow decides everything: hundreds of people across several countries working on the same data, thousands of machines processing around the clock, and deadlines that can't move. I spent 17 years at DNEG and its sister studio ReDefine. I started as a technical director and worked up to Pipeline Supervisor, then Head of Pipeline. Since then I've worked as Director of Digital Transformation, Head of Technology and CTO.
Today I work independently, mostly on retainer, as a fractional CTO and technology consultant for several companies. I design infrastructure, automate workflows and build tools for them. The same approach works outside film. At Futurity I helped build Multilooks, a platform that lets fashion brands design and sell using digital images instead of physical samples and photoshoots. Earlier in my career I built e-learning systems for training air traffic controllers at NATS.
What I bring:
• Workflow design and automation: mapping how work flows through a team and automating it, from small task tools to fully orchestrated pipelines
• AI in practice: building AI into existing workflows where it saves people time, not as a bolt-on
• Infrastructure that scales: cloud (AWS), on-prem and hybrid environments, including storage, compute, security and remote access
• Software and platforms: full-stack applications and internal tools, and integrating or extending off-the-shelf systems
• Technical leadership: roadmaps, budgets, architecture decisions, and building and leading engineering teams. I still write code when the work needs it
There's rarely one right answer. I've built fully remote, cloud-first organisations from scratch, and I've modernised traditional on-prem operations. In each case I start with where the business is today and where it wants to go.
I'm open to new work in any industry. That could be an ongoing retainer, a fixed-term contract or a single project, whatever fits the problem.
Film credits include Avengers: Endgame, F9, Bohemian Rhapsody, Wonder Woman and Harry Potter. The full list is on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2144884
If your team is outgrowing its processes or you want to see where automation could help, send me a message.
Skills
Software Architecture, Cloud & Infrastructure, Platform Modernisation, Engineering Leadership, DevOps, Data & AI
Regions covered
Industry experience
Professional Services, Retail, SaaS
At a glance
Jamie brings hands-on experience across Software Architecture, Cloud & Infrastructure, Platform Modernisation, Engineering Leadership, DevOps, Data & AI. Available for engagements across United Kingdom. Industry experience includes Professional Services, Retail, SaaS.
How fractional CTO engagements with Jamie work
Jamie works on a fractional basis — typically one to three days a week for an agreed engagement length — so you get senior technical leadership without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire. Engagements commonly include technical due diligence, board reporting, engineering team leadership, technology strategy, architecture reviews, hiring support, and stepping in as interim CTO during a transition.