Some people build with concrete. Others build with steel. Maxime Carrier builds with connections.
Connections between software that were never meant to talk to each other. Connections between massive datasets and the engineers who rely on them. Connections between what exists today and what could exist tomorrow if someone takes the time to ask better questions.
Outside of work, Maxime spends his breaks doing something that mirrors this instinct perfectly. He tinkers. He builds costumes. He crafts objects with his hands. He steps away from screens and into a small workshop next to his office where physical materials replace digital ones. For Maxime, making things is not about perfection. It is about curiosity, experimentation, and the quiet satisfaction of watching separate pieces become something functional.
That same mindset defines his work as a Technical Consultant and Analyst at SolidCAD, where he supports clients using Autodesk Civil 3D, AutoCAD Map 3D, FME from Safe Software, and automation-driven civil and geospatial workflows. His role sits at the intersection of civil engineering, geomatics, and programming, a space where he helps organizations move from manual, repetitive processes to connected, automated systems.
This profile is part of SolidCAD’s TechProfiles series, which highlights the people behind digital transformation in infrastructure and public-sector environments.
Maxime’s career did not begin with a traditional civil engineering degree. His academic background is in geomatics. He studied how spatial data is captured, structured, and interpreted. For a long time, he did not work directly in that field.
Early in his career, Maxime worked with land surveyors in Quebec and later moved into research and development environments where new technologies were constantly being tested. Laser scanning. Drone imagery. Emerging data capture methods that, at the time, had very few established workflows.
Maxime became the person who figured out how to make these technologies talk to each other.
“They were acquiring all these advanced tools, and I was the guy finding solutions so that everything could connect.”
That role shaped everything that followed. Over time, Maxime realized that what truly interested him was not a single software platform, but the space between platforms. The gaps. The friction. The inefficiencies that most people accept as normal.
Today, that instinct defines his work.
Maxime describes his current role less as a traditional trainer and more as an analyst.
He reorganizes workflows. He finds gaps. He finds bugs. He identifies where manual effort is hiding and replaces it with logic.
His core platforms include Civil 3D, AutoCAD Map 3D, and FME, a powerful data automation platform widely used for spatial data transformation. He also openly embraces tools like ChatGPT as part of his daily workflow, particularly for synthesis, reporting, and accelerating problem-solving.
While he teaches software, his real value lies in showing clients how to stop depending on repetitive manual operations.
“What separates a basic user from an advanced user is the ability to stop repeating tasks manually and start automating them.”
He emphasizes that automation does not require becoming a professional programmer.
“You don’t have to be a programmer. You just need curiosity.”
In one example, Maxime wrote a script in a matter of minutes that performed advanced quantity calculations on complex 3D solids inside Civil 3D. A task that is normally manual, time-consuming, and prone to error became automated and precise.
For him, this is where transformation actually happens.
Maxime is quick to point out that finding tools is rarely the hard part.
The hardest part is adoption.
Users become comfortable with routines. They build habits around inefficient workflows. Introducing new technology means asking people to change how they think about their work.
Maxime’s approach is simple. Be sympathetic. Listen. Ask questions. Stay humble.
“If you don’t come in as the person who knows everything, it melts the ice.”
Trust, in his experience, is the real accelerator.
Over the years, Maxime has worked extensively with Hydro-Québec, helping teams push the limits of what they were doing with design, modeling, and data. Many of these teams were already using powerful tools, but only a fraction of their potential was being realized. Maxime’s role has been to reveal what is possible when software capabilities are paired with well-structured workflows and automation.
His work often combines advanced Civil 3D modeling, AutoCAD Map 3D data management, and FME-based data transformation to connect engineering design environments with large geospatial databases. He helps organizations move from static drawings to living datasets that can be queried, validated, and updated continuously.
More recently, Maxime has worked closely with Aéroports de Montréal, supporting their technical data centers and infrastructure teams. Airports function like condensed cities, with electrical networks, water networks, underground utilities, transportation corridors, and security systems layered on top of one another. Maxime helps ensure that these datasets remain accurate, standardized, and accessible across departments.
Municipalities across Quebec regularly rely on Maxime as well. His rare strength is having one foot in geomatics and enterprise geodatabases, and one foot in civil engineering project workflows. He understands both how data is curated and how it is consumed in daily design and construction operations.
The result is not just faster work. It is better decision-making.
Earlier in his career, Maxime admits that he rarely thought about what existed beneath city streets. Today, it is one of the aspects of infrastructure that fascinates him most. Water distribution networks. Sanitary and storm sewer systems. Electrical corridors. Fiber networks. Massive underground systems that quietly support daily life but remain invisible to most people.
These systems are often decades old. Many were built with limited documentation. Some exist only as fragmented records spread across departments. Maxime’s work helps bring order to that complexity.
He helps organizations consolidate, validate, and modernize their underground asset data so that it can be trusted. Because when infrastructure fails, it is rarely due to a lack of engineering knowledge. It is usually due to missing, outdated, or inaccessible information. Understanding the hidden city means protecting the visible one.
When Maxime steps away from work, he steps away from screens.
He builds things. He crafts. He tinkers. He experiments with materials and tools in the same way he experiments with software.
This physical creativity is not a hobby that exists apart from his professional life. It is an extension of it.
Both worlds rely on iteration. Try something. See what happens. Adjust. Improve. Whether he is assembling a costume, crafting an object, or building an automated workflow, the process is the same. Small improvements compound into meaningful results. That hands-on mindset keeps him grounded and sharp.
Maxime summarizes his philosophy in three ideas. Stay curious. Ask questions. Stay humble. Even when you are highly skilled, approach problems as if you are not an expert yet. That posture creates space for learning.
It also creates space for collaboration. Clients feel comfortable sharing what is not working. Teams feel safe admitting uncertainty. Real conversations begin.
For Maxime, expertise is not about having all the answers.
It is about knowing how to find them.
Maxime brings together civil engineering context, geomatics expertise, and automation thinking in a way that is rare. He does not simply teach software features.
He helps organizations rethink how work flows through their systems.
He shows teams how to connect design, data, and decision-making into a single ecosystem. For SolidCAD clients, Maxime is not only solving technical problems. He is building bridges between systems, disciplines, and possibilities. Quietly. Curiously. One connection at a time.