Joël Perras has been professionally involved in technology and computing for over 12 years. He got his start in the world of programming by attempting to teach himself Java at the tender age of 13 and got his first job at a small web development firm a few years later writing Java Server Pages. The first site he built is still running. While studying physics and mathematics at McGill University in Montréal, he helped set up a Tier II analysis centre for the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, which cemented his interest in distributed systems architecture and high performance computing. Currently, his days are spent building infrastructure and Python applications with the incredible people at Fictive Kin, writing open source code, and trying to lift heavy weights over his head on a regular basis.