About
Mattias De Ridder.
Software engineer with a UX background.
I'm in Ghent, working at Esko on software for the global packaging-design industry.
I started out in electronics — Arduino, PCB layout, the slog of getting a small product through CE approval — and that's where the taste for tight feedback loops came from. Design came next: four years at smartphoto group as front-end + UX, on the multilingual storefront — homepage, search, the account flow — across their European markets.
After smartphoto, a year in Québec at Agrilog on backend scalability and real-time data (TypeScript, PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch, GraphQL, socket servers). Then back to Belgium for Esko.
Outside the day job: a personal AI operating system called JANE, a reference implementation for MCP-driven agents, fourteen browser games you can play right here, and an Instagram series explaining frontier tech (AI, quantum, CRISPR) for non-specialists.
Two through-lines: I prefer a working prototype to a perfect spec, and motion should mean something. The rest is in the work.
The personal brands — WLBT, the photography account, the merch experiments — each get their own write-up under /brands.
How I work
Working beats perfect.
Smallest version end to end, then iterate. The shape of the answer almost always changes once code exists.
Motion should mean something.
If it's not communicating state, it's decoration. Decoration ages badly.
Audit what you can.
Logs, types, accessibility, performance budgets. Easy to skip until they matter — then very expensive.
Timeline
2026
/ AIJANE & this site
Building JANE — a personal AI OS with deterministic workflows and an append-only audit log. Launching mattiasderidder.com as the home for everything.
Late 2024 — now
/ WorkSoftware engineer · Esko (Veralto)
Building software for the global packaging-design industry. Ghent, Belgium.
2025
/ MultiMCP Todo Flow · Network Intelligence OS · Pedri
Reference implementation for MCP integration. AI-powered contact discovery. Multilingual artist platform shipped for a client.
2024
/ GamesAether Drift · portfolio-2024 · 3D Tetris
Phaser dream platformer with Firebase backend. Three.js portfolio. Cylindrical Tetris prototype.
2023 — 2024
/ WorkFull-stack developer · Agrilog Inc.
Backend scalability + real-time. TypeScript, PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch, GraphQL, socket servers, edge-computing integration. Led SDLC + design-system work in Next.js.
2018 — 2022
/ WorkFront-end developer & UX/UI designer · smartphoto group
Led a multilingual web application across 14 countries. Built an internal design system. User research, usability testing, mobile-first React.
2017 — 2018
/ WorkWeb developer · t'Rozenland
Full lifecycle of multi-page sites for the landscaping industry — design through maintenance.
2013 — 2018
/ StudyHOWEST — Hogeschool West-Vlaanderen
Digital Arts & Entertainment → Devine (Digital Design & Development) → Network Economics. Cross-disciplinary path through 3D, UX/UI, dev, and business.
Stack
Languages
Frameworks
3D & Animation
AI & Agents
Backend
Design & UX
Tooling
Outside the work
Things that shape the way the rest of it looks.
Guitar — 20 years in
Started at 12. Mostly fingerstyle, occasionally loud.
Drawing since 10
Saturdays at Kunstacademie Aalst until I aged out. Visual arts → architecture & model building.
Electronics first
Studied electricity / electronics before code. Arduino, assembler, hand-laid PCBs, one CE-approved product.
eMTB + hiking
Hills near Ghent. Trails for thinking time, climbs for the head-clearing.
Building physical things
Model building, Nerf modding, the occasional 3D print. Mostly because screens get tired of you.
Long-form reading
Systems, design, the odd philosophy book. The shelf grows faster than I get through it.
Photography
Mostly travel and slow walks. Lives on a side Instagram, not the work portfolio.
Game dev + VR experiments
The browser games here are the visible part. A pile of half-explored VR prototypes lives offline.
If you’ve seen something here worth a conversation, email works best.
Contact