Summary
Max Kirienko is a multidisciplinary visual effects and software engineer with 14 years of experience blending VFX artistry and technical architecture across film, commercials, broadcast, and interactive projects. As a co-founder and technical lead at multiple studios and labs, he has led R&D, shading, rendering, simulation and pipeline engineering using tools from Houdini, Maya and Nuke to custom C++/OpenGL and Python/Django tooling. He has supervised VFX on feature films and high-profile commercials, delivering complex fluid/particle simulations, lighting and compositing at studio scale while also building backend systems with MySQL, Redis and Cassandra. Based in Ljubljana, he now operates as a self-employed specialist, combining hands-on creative supervision with software-centric pipeline automation. Notably, his background spans both low-level graphics development (HDK, VEX, RenderMan/Mantra) and full-stack scripting for production, enabling him to solve problems from shader code to deployment. He brings a rare mix of cinematic craft and systems engineering that accelerates production while keeping technical debt in check.
14 years of coding experience
6 years of employment as a software developer
Computer Science, Computer Science at Lyceum of IT #1533
English, Russian, Slovenian