Bonjour, Hi!

I’m Jason, a Belgian guy based in Montreal.
I’m a Software Developer who grew up at the intersection of film production and software development. Long before working in Software Development, I started learning how things worked by building simple websites by mixing HTML, CSS, PHP and even a bit of Flash – Thanks to resources like « Le site du zéro » (the French ones will know).

Over the years, that curiosity naturally pulled me toward pipeline engineering and software development. After my degree, I’ve spent my time designing, building, and maintaining tools and systems with a simple goal and passion in mind: creating pixels.

My day-to-day work lives somewhere between engineering rigor and production reality. I work primarily with Python and C++, focusing on pipeline development, shader writing, and rendering optimization. I interact daily with DCCs and technologies such as Maya, Katana, Arnold, PRMan, Nuke, REZ, Docker, CMake, ShotGun/ShotGrid/FPT, Jenkins, OpenColorIO, OpenImageIO, Tractor, ELK, and more – not because I like collecting tools, but because solving real production problems usually means understanding the whole ecosystem.

I rely on Agile practices, the SDLC, and CI/CD workflows to keep projects moving, use ARC42 canvases to reason about architecture, and sketch diagrams early to make complex ideas easier to share. If something can’t be explained simply, it probably isn’t clear enough yet.

If you’re looking for someone who’s comfortable navigating both production and engineering, happy to go deep when needed, and pragmatic enough to keep things simple, stupid, feel free to reach out at mertens.jas@gmail.com.