James Williams
Fractional CTO · Founder and CEO, COFEBE · Corona, California
James Williams is a fractional CTO and the founder and CEO of COFEBE, a software engineering and UX/UI design firm based in Corona, California. Through COFEBE's fractional CTO service, he gives venture-backed startups, growth-stage companies and private equity–backed businesses part-time executive technology leadership: technology strategy, architecture, product roadmaps, engineering hiring and investor-ready technology plans.
James has more than 25 years of experience building software products and engineering teams, and has served as chief technology officer at four companies. He was CTO of Veritone, where his team orchestrated more than 300 AI cognitive engines to turn audio and video into searchable data, and CTO of Teletrac, a telematics SaaS company with more than $200 million in revenue, which he led through its acquisition by a Fortune 200 company. He was also VP of Advanced Technology at Joyent, where he brought the Triton container infrastructure and Manta object storage platforms to market. Since founding COFEBE in 2009, he has helped launch five startups and worked with Fortune 500 companies.
Career
- Founder and CEO, COFEBE (2009–present). Software engineering, UX/UI design and fractional CTO firm founded in Orange County and now based in Corona, California.
- Chief Technology Officer, Veritone (2015–2017). AI platform orchestrating 300+ cognitive engines across audio, video and broadcast content.
- VP of Advanced Technology, Joyent (2013–2015). Brought Triton Elastic Infrastructure and Manta object storage to market and contributed to the growth of Node.js.
- Chief Technology Officer, Teletrac (2011–2013). Led hardware, software and product for a $200M+ telematics SaaS company through its acquisition by a Fortune 200 company.
- Chief Technology Guide, The IMS Company (2009–2011). Started a cloud division that produced $1M in revenue in its first seven months.
- Chief Technology Officer, WebVisible (2007–2009). Promoted to CTO within six months; delivered a turnkey interactive advertising platform.
- Consultant, Google (2007). Integrated dMarc's radio ad platform into Google.
- Chief Technology Officer, Fluid Media Networks (2004–2007). Founding member; launched American Idol Underground with Fremantle Media.
What James Works On
- Fractional CTO engagements for founders who need senior technology leadership before a full-time CTO hire
- Technology strategy and architecture, including 12-month roadmaps and engineering budgets
- Engineering hiring and team performance, from first hires to KPIs and code review practices
- Production and scale problems: debugging, cloud infrastructure and DevOps
Industry Experience
James has led technology in artificial intelligence, telematics and IoT, cloud infrastructure, digital advertising and media. Through COFEBE, he has also led engineering and design work in mortgage lending, aerospace inflight entertainment and cloud computing. See the case studies. Recent work includes building CloudLogics' liquid immersion–cooled cloud platform and redeveloping Trident1's point-of-sale system for federal firearms licensees.
Writing
James writes PocketCTO, his newsletter on Substack, and writes about engineering leadership and careers in software on Medium, including:
- A Message to Those Who Are Surprised to See Black People in Software
- The Email That Got Me Promoted to CTO
- I’ll Never Be a Chief Technology Officer Again… Unless It’s for My Own Company
- The Responses I Got From a Software Developer Candidate That Made Me Hire Him
- Forty and Still a Software Developer?
He is also the author of the free CTO Negotiation Template.
Connect
- Email: james@cofebe.com
- Phone: (949) 482-0099
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jdubyou
- PocketCTO newsletter: jdubyou.substack.com
- Medium: jdubyou.medium.com
