jacob marriott · forward deployed engineer

Your team is spending hours on work that shouldn't exist. I get them back to the job you hired them for.

I work inside small businesses, with the people doing the work, until I can see where their time is going. The fix might be a change to how things are done, a tool you can already buy, or software I build for you. I'll tell you which one it is before you commit to anything.

tell me what's taking too long

Brisbane Queenstown working across Australia & New Zealand

how i work

  1. I start with the people.

    I talk to the owner and to whoever answers the phone, and everyone in between. Most owners know something is slow but can't say exactly where, because the cause is spread across a few roles and a few systems.

  2. You get a plan and a first win.

    A plan for where the business should end up, and a couple of changes your staff can use straight away. The quick wins go first, because a team that has seen one thing get easier is much happier to change the rest.

  3. I build what's worth building.

    Integrations between the systems you already use, document generators, reporting, internal tools and websites. I build them myself and I'm still around after they go live.

What I'll talk you out of

A lot of people come to me wanting AI, and often they don't need it. A fixed process, plain software or a product off the shelf is usually cheaper and easier to keep running. Code written without understanding the problem tends to miss how people actually work, and then nobody uses it. I'd rather tell you that at the start than build something that sits there.

work

  1. Innovative Travel

    christchurch, nz

    A tour wholesaler of 15+ people selling international holidays. The team are salespeople, and they were spending most of the day on data entry. The same booking was typed into three or four systems. Documents came out of the booking system wrong and had to be fixed in Word before a customer saw them. Some records were still on paper, and nobody could see a customer's full history in one place.

    I sat with every role in the business and wrote a plan for how bookings should move through it. The first two builds were a live feed of their tours, now used by Tour Atlas and other booking platforms, and a document generator that turns a booking into a finished itinerary in the company's own voice and layout. Before anything goes out, it checks that every price and date matches the booking. A central customer database is next on the plan.

  2. Queenstown Chamber of Commerce

    queenstown, nz

    Every quarter the Chamber turns a member survey into a published report. I built the tool that produces it from the survey export as an editable Word document. The figures are calculated in code, and I tested them against a past published report until they matched. AI drafts the commentary, and a draft is rejected if it quotes a number that isn't in the data.

  3. StrataCare Australia

    brisbane · technology officer

    I advise StrataCare on an AI overhaul of the business and redesign their processes so the technology does more of the work. I built a reporting engine over their SharePoint files so staff can ask for a report or spreadsheet instead of putting it together by hand. Its first big job pulled 1,643 claim records into a single register. I've also audited their IT spend and rebuilt their website.

  4. In a Pickle

    brisbane

    A website for a boutique caterer, with menus, quotes and bookings. I built a custom CMS so the owner can edit text, photos and menus directly on the page.

    "Our website was in dire need of a major revamp and we were lucky enough to come across Jacob Marriott. Dealing with Jacob has been awesome. His attention to detail and knowledge around an online presence has helped create a much more user-friendly platform for our clients to navigate. In the short time since we launched we have already noticed a major increase in traffic to the site with many of the new features he has applied being utilised by our customers. Jacob not only designed our website but he can manage behind the scenes for us too. 100% recommend!!"

    Esther Downie, owner, In a Pickle

also

  • A personal AI that knows your work.

    I set up an AI environment on your own computer with your files, notes and way of working already built in. It remembers what you're working on and takes the repetitive jobs off your week, so you aren't explaining yourself from scratch every time.

  • AI that knows your business.

    I build AI systems that understand how your company runs: your processes, your clients and how you like things done. Staff use it like any AI assistant, but it already has that context, so the answers fit your business. Brain Console started as one of these.

about

I'm finishing a software engineering degree at UQ. Before that I spent five years in professional kitchens, where you learn fast which parts of a system hold up during a busy service and which don't. I still look at businesses that way.

I split my time between Brisbane and Queenstown. I also run Marriott Systems, where I make my own software products.

contact

Tell me what's taking too long. I'll come back with some questions, and if I can help, a quote.

email
hello@jacobmarriott.com
phone
AU +61 424 964 420 NZ +64 21 026 71274
linkedin
jacob-marriott
github
jacobem1836